


Bibliomancy

by MissELY



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Divination, F/M, Hogwarts Era, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-19
Updated: 2020-11-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:14:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26544295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissELY/pseuds/MissELY
Summary: Bibliomancy - The art of divining the future using books and other printed material.When Hermione Granger comes across a book about bibliomancy, she realizes that Divination is not the wishy-washy subject she once believed. Coming to terms with this power is difficult, and getting other people to believe in it is harder, but her ability to use bibliomancy to make predictions about the future may mean the difference between life and death for her loved ones and herself.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 41
Kudos: 147





	1. Unfogging the Future by Cassandra Vablatsky

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thank you to [weestarmeggie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weestarmeggie/pseuds/weestarmeggie) for alpha-ing and <[NuclearNik](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NuclearNik) for alpha-beta-ing.

Hermione Granger had always loved books. 

Her parents used to tell her that instead of falling asleep with stuffed animals, she had preferred falling asleep clutching  _ The Very Hungry Caterpillar _ . They said that her first act of accidental magic was summoning her favourite books after her parents put them away so she would go to sleep. They would leave her tucked in alone in her cot and come back to her covered in books and sleeping soundly. 

Books were comforting to her.

She loved everything about them: the smell of the old books in the Hogwarts library, the physicality of turning the pages, the noise that new books made when they were opened for the first time. Even now in her Third Year, the library was her safe space in the castle.

Which was why she was now staring open-mouthed at Professor Trelawney. 

“Books only take you so far”? In a class? How could things designed to pass down knowledge and information not help to learn new information? Why did the professor even have them buy the textbook if it didn’t matter?

Hermione’s cheeks heated to a dull red, and she found she could not concentrate on Professor Trelawney’s whispery voice. It was drowned out by an angry buzzing in her ears. She tried to focus, blinking hard and shifting her body towards the professor.

It didn’t work.

Harry and Ron both shot her worried looks. Her mouth was pursed, and she refused to make eye contact with anyone.

_ Books don’t help. Preposterous. _

Hermione was feeling rather put out and contrary by the time that Professor Trelawney leaned over Harry’s teacup, peering into it. It didn’t help that the boys weren’t taking the class seriously, their snickers loud in the overheated, claustrophobic room.

“Let me see that, my dear,” Professor Trelawney said, disapproval evident in her voice. She plucked Harry’s cup out of Ron’s hand, and Hermione twisted her body to watch. 

Professor Trelawney peered into the teacup, rotating it counterclockwise.

“The falcon...My dear boy, you have a deadly enemy.”

Hermione didn’t bother to resist her impulse to roll her eyes and just did it. “But everyone knows that,” she said, not truly bothering to keep her voice down. 

The look that Professor Trelawney gave her was downright frosty. 

“Well, they do.” She felt the urge to defend herself under the glare of a professor. “Everybody knows about Harry and You-Know-Who.” 

The looks that Harry and Ron gave her were downright worshipful. She worried the inside of her cheek for a second, wondering if she had gone too far. She had never spoken that way to a teacher in her life, but she couldn’t bring herself to regret it.

Professor Trelawney pressed her lips into a thin line and returned her attention to Harry’s teacup. 

“The club... an attack. Dear, dear, this is not a happy cup...” 

“I thought that was a bowler hat,” said Ron, rubbing the back of his neck with a hand. 

“The skull... danger in your path, my dear...” Professor Trelawney’s voice was higher and breathier than before. Hermione had a very bad feeling about what was going to come next.

The room was silent as the whole class watched Professor Trelawney turn the cup a final time, gasp, and then scream. 

Hermione winced and a nearby crash let her know that Neville had broken his second cup. 

Professor Trelawney sat heavily down on a nearby pouf, her bejewelled hand at her heart and her eyes fluttering closed. 

“My dear boy—my poor dear boy—no—it is kinder not to say—no—don’t ask me...” 

Hermione bit the inside of her cheek again to keep from saying something that might get her detention. Surely this was overdramatic.

“What is it, Professor?” Dean Thomas asked. The class had gotten to their feet, pulling in closer around Harry’s cup. 

“My dear,” Professor Trelawney took a shaky inhale as her hand fluttered from her heart to her mouth and then back, “you have the Grim.” 

Harry blinked, obviously confused. “The what?” 

The reaction of most of the rest of the class was immediate. Ron went pale and Neville’s hands visibly shook, while Hermione was still rather nonplussed. She knew what the Grim was. She had completed reading the textbook a few days after she had purchased it, but she hadn’t actually believed that omens were real. It seemed too close to what the fortune-tellers who would frequent the boardwalks of Blackpool would say to be actual magic. 

“The Grim, my dear! The Grim!” Professor Trelawney was clearly dismayed that not everyone had appreciated the drama of her prediction. “The giant, spectral dog that haunts churchyards! My dear boy, it is an omen—the worst omen—of death!” 

Harry suddenly looked much more distressed, and everyone in the room was looking at him with concern, fear, pity, or a mix of those emotions in their eyes.

Hermione barely refrained from clicking her tongue. This was absolute rubbish. The textbook clearly said that interpretations of tea leaves were best done by someone who knew the tea-drinker well or the tea-drinker themselves. If Ron hadn’t seen a Grim, and Harry didn’t see a Grim, it obviously wasn’t a Grim. 

Hermione made a quick decision and pushed in closer so that she could see Harry’s teacup more clearly. The tea leaves clumped together to make some sort of shape, but really, it was more of a misshapen blob than anything else. The irritation that had been simmering all class spurred her to open her mouth.

“I don’t think it looks like a Grim,” she said, doing her best to keep her voice no-nonsense.

Professor Trelawney’s lip curled in distaste, and her eyes held no warmth. It was by far the nastiest look Hermione had ever gotten from a teacher in her life. It was very clear that Professor Trelawney expected the entire class to go along with the show and was irritated that Hermione was spoiling that. 

“You’ll forgive me for saying so, my dear, but I perceive very little aura around you. Very little receptivity to the resonances of the future.” The professor’s voice was tart, and her mouth was tight around the corners, perhaps holding back a scowl.

To Hermione’s great delight Seamus Finnigan chimed in. 

“It looks like a Grim if you do this,” he said, squinting his eyes until they were nearly shut, “but it looks more like a donkey from here.” He tilted his head the other way.

Hermione did her best to resist the urge to laugh. It got easier when she caught sight of Harry’s face. He looked genuinely distressed. 

“When you’ve all finished deciding whether I’m going to die or not!” his teeth were gritted, and he spoke loudly enough to startle their classmates. Hermione winced. 

“I think we will leave the lesson here for today,” said Professor Trelawney, her voice going high and breathy again. “Yes... please pack away your things...” 

Everyone returned the cups to the cabinet and packed away their things in silence. Ron was still pale and avoiding looking at Harry. Others were giving Harry looks that ranged from alarmed to pitying. Hermione even though she heard Lavender  _ tsk  _ sadly at him.

“Until we meet again,” the professor said, waving a hand dismissively through the air, “fair fortune be yours. Oh, and dear—” She pointed at Neville, “—you’ll be late next time, so mind you work extra-hard to catch up.” 

Hermione still couldn’t stop thinking about the class as they made their way down the ladder and out of the tower.

_ Books—not matter—preposterous. _

“Hermione?” Harry’s tentative voice shook her out of her furious distraction. 

She had been trailing behind the group, so distracted that she had almost forgotten to use her Time-Turner to ensure she could attend all her classes. But Harry’s voice reminded her, and her hand curled around the pendant under her jumper.

“Hmmm?” She turned to look at Harry, brow still furrowed.

“We have Transfiguration, do you have the book? I think I forgot mine in the common room.”

Harry gave a hopeful smile, and she grimaced in response.

“Oh—uh, no, I need to run and grab mine. I’ll meet you there.” She turned on her heel and hurried around the corner, seeking a safe place where she could hide while she used her tTime-Turner. She needed to go back in order to attend Arithmancy.

She always aimed for alcoves behind tapestries, or if she could manage it, the safety of her own bed, behind her curtains. Professor McGonagall had warned her not to use bathroom stalls because you never knew who was in there two hours before you, and the last thing you wanted was to land in someone’s lap while they were on the toilet.

She made it to Arithmancy—then to Muggle Studies, Transfiguration, and then the rest of the day’s lessons—with no problem. However, half her mind remained in an uproar about a type of magic that she could not study the theory for out of a book and that the professor openly said she could not really teach. Even as she time travelled back and forth, trying to attend all her classes, Hermione still couldn’t shake off the strange twisting feeling in her gut she got from Divination. How could books be of no help?

The idea that books would be of no help made her miserable and more than a little nervous.

She was still stewing when dinnertime came. Ron’s continued edginess after  _ seeing the Grim _ or whatever it was certainly didn’t help her sour mood, and she couldn’t help the biting comment that came next 

“You didn’t seem quite so confident when you were telling her it was a bowler hat.”

Ron’s face got red, and his mouth twisted in a scowl.

“Professor Trelawney said you didn’t have the right aura. You just don’t like being bad at something for a change.”

Hermione glared at him. She would prove him and Professor Trelawney wrong. 

Books could be useful.

* * *

  
  


After all the day’s lessons were done, she used her Time-Turner just one more time, this time to go to the library.

Technically, she wasn’t supposed to do extra trips with it, just lessons and sleep, but she figured that this counted as a lesson, seeing as she had learned nothing at all in Divination class.

Nodding respectfully to Madam Pince, she made a beeline to the Divination section of the library. 

The first book she pulled from the shelves was on the history of the study of Divination,  _ A Historical Overview of the Art of Divination _ . She skimmed through the parts about Morgan le Fay, one hand tangling in her wild hair while the other quickly flipped through pages.

It yielded few results. The book focused mostly on famous Seers and their prophecies, and not how they learned or documented the craft. Most of the Masters of Divination mentioned seemed to have learned the craft from another Seer, not from books. In fact, there was almost no mention of books in the whole volume.

The next book she pulled was  _ Divination: The Secret Craft _ , which also provided little guidance. It was too involved in the minutiae of the development of the popular Divination techniques and had nothing about how Divination actually worked or anything about other books that could help her learn. 

She finally removed her own Divination textbook from her bag:  _ Unfogging the Future  _ by Cassandra Vablatsky. She had already read through it twice, but the first time she just skimmed, and she didn’t recall all the details. She cursed the lack of index and instead settled on skimming through it once more.

She was most of the way through the book when she came upon a section that made her pause. It was small and only had one line, easy to overlook, but her eyes caught on it. It was titled  _ Bibliomancy. _

Flipping the book open, her eyes caught on the first page.

_ Bibliomancy, the seldom-used art of using books in the practice of Divination. Though not covered in this text, it was once the favourite method of divination of Märet Jonsdotter prior to her execution in 1672. _

Hermione’s hand untangled from her hair, and she smoothed her finger over the short paragraph, before returning to the stacks.

Instead of a direct and purposeful search for a book she wasn’t sure would even exist, she let herself wander through the Divination section, waiting for something to jump out at her. Despite Madam Pince’s fanaticism about taking care of her books, the organisational system of Hogwarts’ library left a lot to be desired. Most of the books didn’t have titles on their spines, and the order was based on loose word connections that after three years, Hermione still didn’t understand.

She didn’t mind, really. The search for books was invigorating and allowed her to discover new knowledge. Finding books she wasn’t looking for was half of the fun. After all, she always found the book she needed in the end.

Her fingers trailed across the spines of the books as she walked the aisle idly, half-reading what few titles there were. Nothing was calling to her, so she turned and did the same down the other side of the aisle. 

Two thirds along she stopped abruptly. Her eyes were drawn to the second shelf from the top, and her gaze focused on a slim blue volume whose title had been worn away by time on the spine. It stuck out for some reason that she couldn’t quite put her finger on, and she trekked to the end of the aisle to get a step ladder so she could reach. Hermione cursed that she didn’t know the summoning spell that older students used, even though Madam Pince always frowned when she caught them doing that. 

She carried the step ladder over. It was almost bigger than she was, but she was careful not to drag it or make any excess noise. Setting it down and making sure it was sturdy she climbed up and grabbed the book that had caught her eye.

The title was also worn down on the cover, but she could tell it had once been embossed in lovely gold script. 

She descended the stairs carefully and returned to her desk, the book clasped to her chest. She opened the blue volume to try to determine what it was about and to see if it had a table of contents.

The pages were yellowed with age, and Hermione’s hand hesitated, not wanting to damage the fragile thin sheets by flipping through them too aggressively.

The first page said, “ _ Bibliomancy and its Uses. _ ”

_ Bibliomancy. _ Hermione mouthed the word, letting it roll over her tongue. The same phrase she had seen in her textbook. 

_ Biblio- _ from the Greek word,  _ biblion, _ meaning paper or scroll, commonly used in English words referring to books, and  _ -mancy _ from the Greek word,  _ manteia, _ meaning oracle or divination, used in English to denote “divination by means of." 

Together they were  _ Bibliomancy _ , divination by means of books.

_ Well take that, Professor Trelawney _ , Hermione thought, more than a little smug.  _ You can use books in divination. _

She looked through the book to try to find a table of contents, but there was none; it just started at chapter one. Flipping to the back of the book, she checked to see if there was an index, but unsurprisingly, there was nothing there. 

Her palm stayed flat on the title page of the book, and she looked up into the middle distance, contemplating what she should do now. Half of her was tempted to run up to Professor Trelawney’s tower and wave the book in her face, but that would probably do more harm than good. The other half wanted to hold the information back and use it to write an extra credit essay later in the term. 

A smug smile played at the corners of her mouth. At least she had soothed her own ego; she wasn’t wrong about books being useful in Divination, even if it wasn’t in the way she thought they would be.

Flipping to the beginning, she suddenly withdrew her hand from the page with a sharp intake of breath. The words on the page had shimmered and twisted, and instead of  _ Chapter One _ , the text now read  _ Introduction _ . 

She bit at the inside of her cheek, frowning. Books that changed text and responded to an unvoiced desire worried her. It was a touch too close to Tom Riddle’s diary that wrote back for her taste. But this had just been in the stack in the library, and she didn’t think that Madam Pince would allow something dangerous in her collection. More importantly, she did want to know what was in the book, and it  _ was  _ correct in assuming that an introduction would be of use to her.

She began skimming the introduction and found it surprisingly thorough. 

_ Bibliomancy emerged only after the advent of the printing press, though may have links to older Divination techniques. Bibliomancers may practice their craft in multiple ways. Sometimes a practitioner specialises in one type of practice, sometimes more than one. One method of utilising books in Divination is simply finding the right book. Such a method functions best when the Bibliomancer has access to a library, a bookstore, or a larger collection of books. Intentions may be set at the beginning of a search, either for a book that is needed for a specific project, or a book that is to serve as an omen or sign about the future. More advanced Bibliomancy involves asking a question and being drawn to words or phrases in a specific book. Either way, Bibliomancy is a method of allowing the practitioner to be shown what information Magic thinks that they need. _

Well, that sounded sillier than she had hoped.

Hermione drummed her fingers over the text, trying to decide what to do. This was certainly enough information to write an extra credit essay about, but maybe she needed more. It was clear even from just that one class that Professor Trelawney valued practical experience over pure research. Hermione was going to have to at least attempt Bibliomancy so she could note that she did so in her essay.

She read over the instructions in the slim volume. They were barebones, but the idea was simple enough: concentrate on the question you want answered and allow Magic to guide you. That seemed vague, though. What did it mean, let Magic guide you? Was there supposed to be some sort of sensation or feeling? Was there a bell from the beyond that would ring?

Closing her eyes, she tried to decide what she wanted to know. Maybe how she would do in Divination? That would be straight forward, but it seemed shallow. If this was real, if this worked, why would she waste time on that when there were more pressing and more urgent concerns? Harry’s face floated in her mind's eye and suddenly, she knew what she wanted to ask. 

How could she help prepare and protect her friend who was a magnet for danger? What would Harry need to know about this year?

Focusing on the question she breathed deeply, trying to mimic the techniques she had read about in her mother’s books on meditation. After about a minute, she opened her eyes. She felt no different, but gamely stood and began wandering the library.

Soon, she found herself in the Potions section. The book had said that she would be called to the right choice. She didn’t feel anything calling her, just a growing sense of frustration and impatience.

Maybe Professor McGonagall was right; Divination was a rather wooly subject.

There was a book that was bound in dull orange leather that stood out to Hermione. It didn’t pull at her, or at least she didn’t feel anything special or strange, but she was reaching out to grab it before she had given it any thought. On the cover it had a full moon. 

_ The Development and Uses of Wolfsbane Potion and its After-Effects.  _

She was not entirely sure what Wolfsbane potion was, but she tucked the book under her arm anyway and continued her path through the library. She might as well keep trying and get a robust sample size of books. After all, Professor Trelawney would want to know that she had tried to use her inner eye more than once.

Her next stop was the Transfiguration section. She lingered a minute. Professor McGonagall had already given her the list of essay topics for the term; maybe she could kill two birds with one stone and find a resource for one of those papers. It would count as something Harry would need to know, after all, because he would have to write the same essays she did. There was a book on switching spells on the bottom shelf, and Hermione reached out to grab it, but when she drew her hand back there were two books; the larger book she had meant to pull and a slimmer volume that seemed to have come along for the ride. 

_ Famous Animagi. _

Well, that could be a resource for an essay too, she supposed.

She meant to go back to her desk, but got waylaid in the History of Magic section. One of the few books with titles on the spine right at eye level was  _ A Legal History of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures _ . She picked it up on a whim. It didn’t seem likely that Professor Binns would ever get past the Witch Burnings or the Goblin Wars, but on the off chance they actually covered history that was relevant to their real lives, this could be useful.

Returning to her worktable, she laid out the books in front of her. There was not a cohesive message she could discern from the books she pulled. Maybe these would all be useful for their final examinations? Maybe Professor Snape would have them brew Wolfsbane? Probably not; she had read the entire Potions textbook, and there was no mention of that potion, but Professor Snape could be unpredictable.

Hermione shook her head. This was useless, just like her attempt to read tea leaves this morning had been. Divination was hogwash,and trying to read meanings into books selected at random was mad.

At least the books she had chosen were moderately interesting. She checked them out and stored them in her bag before going back to the common room to see if Harry was back from Quidditch practice.

He wasn’t, so she ran up to her dorm to store the books she had checked out in her trunk and promptly forgot about them.

* * *

It was only when she was unloading her trunk to return all of the library books before the end of the year that she recalled checking those books out. 

The entire contents of her trunk was splayed across her bed, and Hermione was attempting to repack her trunk and make sure she didn’t accidentally steal any library books, thereby earning herself the eternal enmity of Madam Pince. She was trying to avoid thinking of Sirius out there somewhere with Buckbeak, trying to avoid being caught, avoid dying. She shook her head sharply, trying to refocus on the task at hand.

There were about a dozen books she needed to return. She unearthed them from the pile of her clothes and loose parchment one by one, not paying much attention to the titles until they were laid out in front of her.

It was the book on animagi that first caught her eye. Then Wolfsbane. And then—

The blood rushed out of her head, and she was suddenly dizzy. She sat down hard on the floor in front of her bed, eyes glued to the books. 

She had—

No, it couldn’t be; that was ridiculous. She reached out, her shaking hand touching the cover of the slim blue volume she had checked out nine months before. She clenched her hand into a fist to try to stop the involuntary movement, but it didn’t help.

But the book had surely said something about feeling called, and she didn’t remember feeling called when selecting the books; they had just been books she had happened across. She would have felt  _ something _ if it was more than nonsense.

She bit the inside of her cheek so hard she tasted blood, and she swallowed, but the taste of copper lingered in her mouth.

Hermione had quit Divination before the subject of Bibliomancy was ever even mentioned in class. She snatched up the blue book about it before she could give it much thought and practically ran to Professor Trelawney’s office.

She was knocking on the door, out of breath with the book clutched tightly to her chest when she realised she had no idea what she actually wanted to ask her former professor.

There was no answer for more than thirty seconds. She was about to turn away when the door swung open silently. 

The interior of Professor Trelawney’s office was much like her classroom. Tapestries hung from the walls and gauzy scarves covered the windows, giving the room a close, suffocating feeling. Instead of the hardback chairs that Hermione had seen in every other professor’s office, there were poufs and even a reclining chair. The room was lit by so many candles that Hermione worried about the fire hazard posed by the combination of fabric and flames. 

“Come in” said Professor Trelawney in an airy tone. “I knew we would meet again.”

Hermione felt her jaw tense but stepped inside anyway. Professor Trelawney was at her desk, gazing into a crystal ball while gently swaying to music that only she could hear. The scent of too much incense drifted through the open door, and Hermione rubbed her nose to rid herself of the urge to sneeze.

“Professor,” Hermione paused, wondering if she should apologise for how she had stormed out of the classroom a few months before.

She decided against it.

Instead, she took another step into the room, coming to stand behind a pouf. “I came across a book in the library about Divination and wanted to ask you about it.” 

Something, maybe annoyance, flashed across Professor Trelawney’s face, but she reached out her hand for the book nevertheless.

Hermione hesitated for a second before handing over the slim blue volume.

She winced as Professor Trelawney flicked through the pages with seemingly no regard for the delicate paper or the age of the book.

After a minute, the Professor slid the book back across her desk to Hermione.

“My dear, it seems as if your clinging to the written word has led you astray again.” Professor Trelawney’s lips twisted into an unpleasant smile that Hermione suspected was supposed to look sympathetic.

It made Hermione bristle, offended.

“Bibliomancy is unreliable, and no one with the True Sight makes use of it. Those who believe they can use the technique are really just seeing coincidences and tricking themselves into believing that they see something. The written word can be deceptive in that way.” Professor Trelawney’s certainty came through loud and clear with her nodding firmly as she talked.

Hermione opened her mouth to tell this... this  _ fraud  _ that Bibliomancy was real, that she had pulled books that foretold what had just happened, that there was no way she was seeing things that weren’t there.

But she then shut her mouth so hard her teeth clicked. She couldn’t speak carelessly. No one but Dumbledore, Harry, and Sirius knew what had happened. If she told, she could go to Azkaban, she could get Sirius sent back, and she could jeopardise her entire academic career.

And besides, it was clear that Professor Trelawney didn’t believe in Bibliomancy or in Hermione. 

Hermione was sure that even if she had gone into a trance and given a true prophecy right in front of Professor Trelawney, the witch would have dismissed her just the same.

Instead of arguing back, Hermione nodded. She forced herself to calmly take back the book on Bibliomancy and thank Professor Trelawney for her time, though she was internally seething.

Her steps took her first to her dorm room to collect the rest of the library books that were due, then to the library to return everything. 

The anger at Professor Trelawney simmered in her veins, making her cheeks hot and her shoulders tight. She hated not being taken seriously, but she was almost more mad at herself for even trying. The Divination Professor had proven herself to be a fraud time and time again; the prophecy that Harry supposedly heard just a few days ago was once instance in an entire year of nonsense. Besides, Hermione didn’t need help. She could do this on her own.

Collecting all the library books from where she had laid them out on her bed, she made her way down to the library, determined to solve this mystery herself.

She was handing every book back to Madam Prince one by one when an impulse struck her.

“Madam Pince,” Hermione said, trying to make her voice sound soft and trustworthy, “would it be possible to borrow just one book over the summer? I know that I would have more time to study it, and I want to get a head start on next year’s class work.”

Madam Pince stared her down for a full minute, her thin lips pursed so tightly there was a ring of white around her mouth.

After what felt like forever, Madam Pince nodded once, sharply. “Yes, Miss Granger, you may borrow  _ one _ book. But Merlin help you if there is so much as a dog-eared page when you return it in September.”

“Of course, Madam Pince.” The words spilled out of Hermione’s mouth, as she was slightly breathless and eager to reassure the librarian that she would  _ never  _ deface a school book. Well, almost never, she thought guiltily as she remembered ripping out the page about Basilisks the previous year.

“Very well then. Which book do you wish to take?”

With no thought at all, Hermione immediately grabbed the slim volume on Bibliomancy. 

“This one, Madam Pince. Thank you so much.”

The librarian gathered the rest of the books back, and Hermione took the circuitous route back to the Gryffindor Common Room, trying to give herself enough time to think.

If Professor Trelawney wouldn’t help her, then books surely would. After all, she trusted books much more than she trusted anything else.


	2. Home Life and Social Habits of British Muggles by Wilhelm Wigworthy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot thank both [weestarmeggie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weestarmeggie/pseuds/weestarmeggie) for alpha-ing and [NuclearNik](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NuclearNik) for alpha-beta-ing enough. They are both spectacular and I love them. Any remaining mistakes are mine.

The welcome Hermione’s parents gave her was as warm as ever. After her goodbyes to Harry and Ron, she was caught up in a bear hug by her mother and her father, Hannah and Keith. 

“Oh, our little Minnie Mouse looks so grown!” Her mother’s voice carried through the train station, and Hermione could feel her cheeks growing red. She had always hated that nickname, and she had told her mother that many times before. Her parents, mainly her mother, had insisted that she needed a nickname, something they could call her that would show family and friends how affectionate they were. Hermione had become Minnie, had become Minnie Mouse; no matter how many times she asked that they stop calling her that, they continued to use it, going so far as to buy her merchandise that she never had the heart to throw away.

“Mum!” Hermione pulled away slightly, lips twisting in a grimace.

“Oh, Hermione.” Her father ruffled her hair, managing to get her despite her attempt to duck out of his reach. He grabbed the trolley with her trunk on it and began pushing it as the family made their way out of King’s Cross.

“How was your last term, Minnie? You must have been busy, we hardly heard from you.” Her mum wrapped her arm around Hermione’s shoulders and pulled her in close.

Hermione winced and guilt made her stomach twist. She should have been better about letter writing. There were so many things that had fallen by the wayside when she was trying to juggle all of her classes.

“Sorry, Mum. I was taking all those classes and got a little overwhelmed.”

That was true. But also it was hard explaining to her Muggle parents about a world that they fundamentally didn’t understand, couldn’t understand.

“Overwhelmed? Did you do well though?” Her dad’s concerned voice broke through her guilt.

Hermione nodded. “Yes, Dad. Top of my class.”

“We would expect nothing less. I was just telling my friend Marie that you were taking the maximum number of classes, and she was so impressed. Her son John only took easy classes.” Her mother’s tone was smug, and Hermione smiled tightly at her mother.

“I did—” Hermione hesitated, trying to decide how to phrase it, “—I did drop one class. Divination.”

“Oh no, why?” Her mother’s voice was dismayed. “Can you take it back up next year? Did you take the final exam for it?”

Her father gave her a serious look over his glasses. “Will this impact your class ranking?”

“I don’t think it will impact my ranking. I’m not taking it back up. Professor McGonagall said it wasn’t a serious subject, and she was right. It was pure guesswork. More like those charlatans who read cards on the boardwalk than real magic.”

Hermione’s father was still frowning, but her mother looked placated.

Once they got to the car, her parents began chatting to her about the family and neighbourhood gossip she had missed out on while she had been in school. She tuned them out, though she made sure to make interested noises at the appropriate places, but they prattled on regardless. 

The trip home was long, made longer by London traffic. Hermione was half asleep by the time they finally arrived at the detached home Hermione had grown up in.

It was strange, each time she returned from Hogwarts, the house seemed smaller.

Her father helped her carry up her trunk to her room, and she unpacked a little.

Really, the only thing that came out of her trunk were her books. Her parents would get pinched looks on their faces if she tried to wear robes around, and all her pyjamas were better suited to cold Scotland winters rather than the sticky summers she was used to in London.

“Minnie Mouse? We’re about to serve dinner,” her mother called up the stairs. “Come down and wash up!”

Hermione padded down the stairs and washed her hands before setting the table. 

They sat down as a family to their meal. Her parents chatted about their patients and Hermione tried to care. She recognised some of the names, but not most.

“Mum. Dad,” Hermione said, taking advantage of a lull in the conversation, “I was wondering if I could start going to the library by myself instead of staying indoors all summer while both of you are at work.”

Her parents exchanged worried looks.

“Well…” her father started, drawing out the word as if to give himself time to think.

“We don’t want you wandering the neighbourhood, Hermione.” Her mother gave her a serious look, her mouth pulling down into a frown.

“I wouldn’t wander, just to the library and back. I’ve been a million times.” Hermione did her best to keep the whine out of her voice, but she didn’t think she was entirely successful.

“What if you had one of your little school friends come over instead? I’m sure they’d love to see the house! Did you see I redid the living room?” her mother offered, reaching for her wine glass.

Hermione grimaced, pushing a carrot around on her plate with her fork. “I don’t think that would happen. Most of them are magical and wouldn't be comfortable in a Muggle home. Plus, what I want is access to the books.”

She looked up from her plate in time to see her parents exchange a look that she couldn’t quite read. “You have plenty of books here, do you really need more? We could go as a family this weekend and check some out.”

Hermione clenched her hands together under the table, trying to think on her feet. She had known that with her parents' over protective natures, it would be difficult to convince them, but she didn’t think it would be  _ this _ difficult. She was fourteen for god’s sakes.

“I want to be able to study there too. I promise I won’t talk to anyone, and I’ll call the office when I get there and when I get home.”

“I don’t know, Minnie Mouse,” said her mother, her voice uncertain. “You don’t know the neighbourhood anymore, and I know it may seem safe, but Mrs. Marggery from next door was just telling me that some neighbourhood kids had been roaming around like a gang. We wouldn’t want the neighbours to see you and think you were up to no good.”

“I’m sure they weren’t a gang, Mum!” The exasperation was clear in Hermione’s delivery.

“Mum, I’m a teenager.” Her tone was whiny though she was doing her best to keep herself calm. Throwing a fit would only prove to her parents that she wasn’t mature enough to go outside alone, and even though she thought their behavior was unreasonable, whinging about it wouldn’t help.

She took a deep breath and continued in what she hoped was a more mature tone. “I need to be able to leave the house during the day. What do I need to do in order for you to let me have a little breathing room?”

Her parents exchanged another look and Hermione wanted to scream. How dare they treat her like a little girl?

Her mother picked her fork back up, a frown on her face. “We’ll have to talk about it, Hermione. This is a big deal.”

Hermione wanted to yell that it wasn’t, that this babying of her was irrational, especially considering the danger she had been just a few days ago. But she bit her tongue and jerked her head in a nod. 

She went back to pushing her food around before asking to be excused.

Her parents let her go, and she went back to her room and went to bed early, too irritated to concentrate on any book enough to read.

* * *

Hermione woke up early the next morning, getting to her feet and stretching her hands above her head before she paused. She had nothing really to do. She fell back against the bed, sinking back into her pillows, the will to do anything driven out of her.

She could get up and do her summer homework early. Maybe she could watch some telly; after all, even the reruns would be new to her at this point. She also had noticed that her parents had bought some new movies on VHS. She could watch those too.

But really, all she could find the energy to do was lie there.

Her father opened her closed door without knocking, dressed for the day.

“Minnie Mouse? Your mother and I have talked. If you want to go to the library and back—only the library and back, mind—you can.”

Hermione sat straight up on the bed, a grin spreading across her face.

“Really, Dad? Thank you!” This was excellent, she would be able to actually—

“But if we get any calls from the neighbours about you wandering off, engaging in any antisocial behavior, or if you start slacking on your studies, you won’t be allowed to go anymore.” Her father cut off her internal celebration, and she focused on him, trying to make it seem like she was taking their rules seriously.

“Of course, Dad!” She hopped off the bed and hugged her father around the waist. She came up past his shoulder now, only a few inches shorter than he was. That was new. When she had left in September, she had only come to his shoulder. She had spent Christmas at school, so she hadn’t seen her parents in nine months. The change made her heart twist a little.

Hermione pulled back from the hug and met her father’s eyes.

“I’ll make sure to follow all the rules.” She did her best to infuse every word with sincerity.

Her father squeezed her shoulder and gave her a warm smile. “I know you will, Minnie Mouse. Now Mum and I are off for the day. We’ll be back around six.”

The door closed and Hermione hurriedly got dressed, pulling on clothes that she had left in her wardrobe, only to find everything slightly too short and too tight. She had to go through several outfits before she just pulled on jeans from her trunk and an oversized shirt that still fit, making a mental note to tell her parents she needed new clothes.

It was so much easier when she could just magic her clothes to fit. She didn’t get along spectacularly with Lavender or Parvati, but they had taught her some dead useful tailoring charms.

It was only a twenty minute walk. There was a bus route that went there, but her parents tended to be more apprehensive of public transport than they were about walking, so she hadn’t brought it up.

Instead, she spent her walk trying to recall the exact techniques outlined in the Bibliomancy book. For some reason, though, her normally sharp recollection was fuzzy. That led her down another path: what if the book was charmed in some way to prevent clear recall, just like the contents had been charmed to change? Could books be charmed like that? She again remembered the diary from her second year. It had obviously been charmed or cursed in some way, so it seemed likely that other books could also have spells on them that would impact the reader. Maybe that’s what her selections from the beginning of the year had been related to. Maybe it hadn’t been her, but the book. Maybe—

She arrived at the library, her brain still spinning, and found a seat at an empty table by the window. She hadn't brought any school work with her, but she had developed the outline of a plan. First, she wanted to see if her favorite Muggle authors had put out new books she could borrow. Then, she wanted to test her new found powers, or the powers of the book, or the ability she could have imagined. Well, whatever they were, she wanted to experiment more.

Her first task was easy to complete, and she came away with two novels. She sat back down at the desk she had claimed, unsure what to do about her second goal for the day.

She needed a way to test this potential ability. If she remembered the scientific method from primary school, she needed an experiment that she could replicate. She also needed a way to test the outcome, and maybe also a control. 

Perhaps she would start by focusing on a simple question that she could have a concrete answer to in a short amount of time. After that, she would pick some random books without focusing on the question. If the randomly selected books came out with as reliable or more reliable results than the ones chosen using the method she had learned from the book on Bibliomancy, then she would know that it was nonsense.

First she needed a straightforward question that she didn’t know the answer to, and the answer needed to be definitive, not open to interpretation.

_ What will my father make for dinner? _ She did her best to focus on the question. After a minute she stood and let herself start to wander.

After ten minutes of focusing she decided it was a fool’s errand. Divination was nonsense, and she was now wandering around the library without a purpose.

She turned a corner and ended up in the biography section. This didn’t look promising.

Again, like the first time she had done this in Hogwarts library, she didn’t feel  _ called _ to anything, like the book had suggested. There was no overwhelming feeling, no energy yanking her in any direction. There was no pull, no sense of magic. It was just her dawdling through the library thinking how silly she must look.

But it had worked last time, hadn’t it? So maybe it wasn’t so silly after all.

She came to a halt at the end of the aisle and was about to turn around when she saw that one of the spines of the books was a unique shade of lavender. It was an biography of Mother Theresa. She flipped to the inside cover to read the book jacket.

There was nothing about it that screamed  _ dinner options _ . 

But the summary was at least a little interesting, so she might as well check it out. She had nothing but free time. 

She needed another question. An experiment needed to be replicated. 

_ What will my father make for dinner tomorrow? _

Hermione walked back out into the stacks. This time she wandered over to the self-help section. There were books on what to do when your husband cheated on you, others about how to be the best man you could be. There was one that was titled  _ From Shell Shock and War Neurosis to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A History of Psychotraumatology,  _ and she paused. She picked it up and read the back of the book. There were pull out quotes from an American General whose name she recognized from the news. She was about to put it back when she hesitated and instead tucked it under her arm. This was the book she had selected, so she would trust the process.

She selected three more books this way, asking what would be for dinner for every day for the rest of the week. In addition to the biography of Mother Theresa, the book on PTSD, she ended up with  _ Michel Guérard’s Cuisine Minceur _ ,  _ All Quiet on the Western Front,  _ and  _ The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich _ . Given that  _ Michel Guérard’s Cuisine Minceur _ was a cookbook, it looked promising for having predicted dinner for that night. But the others didn’t look like they had meals in them.

Now she needed some random books to see if they were as reliable in predicting what her father would make for dinner. This time she purposefully didn’t focus on any question before she started pulling books. She still let herself wander, but it did feel different. She couldn’t exactly quantify how, because she hadn’t felt a pull before. But she did feel an absence of something now as she selected books at random from various shelves.

She stood by the desk she had camped out at, her hands on her hips. Now how was she going to cart 12 books home?

* * *

It ended up being fine. She had brought a backpack and a tote bag, though the twenty minute walk home in full sun was exhausting.

She hauled the books up to her room and picked up the one that she had chosen while focusing on what would be for dinner that night.

A minute later she put the book down. She really didn’t want to read the autobiography of someone she didn’t particularly care about at that moment.

Instead she went back downstairs to watch some telly and try to calm the anxiousness that had somehow burrowed under her skin.

She found that she couldn’t sit still so she ended up wandering around her home, up and down the stairs. She had finally settled in her favourite chair downstairs with her favorite childhood book when her parents returned home.

“Are you okay? Did anyone talk to you?” were her mother’s first words as she walked through the door.

Hermione couldn’t help the annoyed sigh that came out of her mouth.

“No, Mum. No one talked to me.” She rolled her eyes and pushed herself up into a better sitting position. “Well, I talked to the librarian, but that’s it.”

“Were the neighbours out in their yard? I know Jackson Clavern has the night shift at A&E this week.” Her father went to the fridge and began to unload ingredients for dinner. He was almost always the one to cook unless her parents picked up take away on their way home from the office.

“I didn’t notice anyone out. The walk was fine. I got some books to read. Tamora Pierce put out a new one, so that’s one of the ones I got.” She was distracted and her eyes stayed glued to her father. She couldn’t help herself, she had to ask. “What’s for dinner, Dad?”

“We’re having lasagne and salad. I have a frozen one that your grandmother made ahead. Speaking of which, we’re going to go see her this weekend. She missed you, especially because you didn’t come home over Christmas.”

Guilt again tugged at Hermione’s stomach. “You said it was okay if I stayed at school. You guys were going on a cruise anyways.”

“Still,” her mother chimed in, “she misses you, so we’re going in to see her this weekend.”

“Okay. Fine. Well, I’m going to put this book upstairs. Call me when dinner is ready.”

She hurried up the stairs before either parent had a chance to respond. Closing the door to her bedroom behind her with a sharp click, she went right to the book she had selected while asking what was for dinner that night, the biography of Mother Theresa. 

First she flipped to the index.

No mention of lasagne or salad, or even any sort of Italian food.

She ruffled the pages until she got to the table of contents.

Again, no mention of food at all.

So instead she started skimming through the book. It was exceptionally dull. The introduction waxed lyrical about her childhood in the forests of Albania with absolutely no mention of any sort of food whatsoever ever.

She had gotten through the first chapter before her parents called her for dinner.

After dinner, where her parents again asked why she had dropped Divination and she did her best to defend herself without whining, she cleared the table, did the dishes, and then went back upstairs to try to finish skimming  _ Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light _ .

She fell asleep reading—still not finding anything about lasagne or salad—feeling rather foolish.

* * *

The rest of the week passed in much the same way. Each day Hermione would try to read the book for that day’s dinner and figure out what would be served but inevitably found nothing. 

She still took notes though, remembering the advice she had once heard a scientist give when they came to lecture at her primary school. Experiments need to be documented, even if the results weren’t what you were expecting. 

She selected a blank notebook special for her Bibliomancy notes after getting her mother to bring her to WHSmith during a weekend errand run. 

Instead she learned more about Mother Theresa’s childhood in the forests of Albania, post-traumatic stress disorder, the cuisines of France, the rise of Nazis in Germany, and a book about riots at sports games.

She kept careful notes about everything she read though, just in case.

Out of the books that she had chosen as her random samples there was nothing about any of the meals, but she did find them more interesting. There was one fiction book about a prince who slew dragons, a nonfiction book about coping with nightmares, another about the child of an abusive father and how that abuse had impacted his upbringing. There was also a book of essays written by athletes about how competition could be toxic, and finally, a book of poetry by Emily Dickinson which her mother had seen her reading and had purchased her a copy. 

She again kept notes about every single book she read, but as with the books where she had tried to use Bibliomancy, there was nothing connected to the various meals that her father had served over the week.

Whatever skill or ability she thought she had was obviously not real; her hypothesis and detailed experiment had proven that. After all, if she had an ability, she should be able to test it.

* * *

Hermione still went back to the library, though, almost exactly a week later. And then again the next week, and the next.

Despite the failure of her first round of experiments, she continued to try the method suggested in the book on Bibliomancy, which she read through three more times. Each time she went back she asked more abstract questions, like she had the time she had tried to use Bibliomancy at Hogwarts. 

Questions about the upcoming year, about how to keep Harry safe, about how to protect herself in the future.

Some of the books she pulled scared her though. There were books on the guillotine and the French Revolution, about the torture of the Saints, about the Holocaust. 

She sought comfort in the fact that none of her experiments had produced any real results, and that no matter how many direct questions she asked, there were no correct answers to be found.

Each time though, she selected books that seemingly had nothing to do with her question. But she still checked them out and read them. 

She got a book of poetry and became obsessed over the poem  _ No Resurrection _ by Robinson Jeffers and even tried to learn calligraphy so she could copy it down and keep it with her. It ended up looking awful, but she still tucked it in her school books to save.

There was something about one part of the poem that captivated her. 

“But now, if I should recall my ruins

From the grass-roots and build my body again in the heavy grave,

Twist myself naked up through the earth like a strong white worm,

Tip the great stone, gulp the white air,

And live once more after long ages”

The lines urged her to run her finger across the page again and again.

It wasn’t only books she picked up. On her visit to the GP, she had somehow picked up a pamphlet on abusive spouses and parents. She used it as a bookmark in her book on Bibliomancy, somehow unable to toss it away.

She completed all of her summer assignments in the first week but lingered over them. 

She also briefly became deeply interested in Polyjuice potion again. It was mentioned in her third year’s potions textbook, and she begged and cajoled her parents into letting her go to Diagon Alley early so she could purchase the books she knew she would need for the next year as well as some extras.

One that she picked up was the  _ History of Polyjuice Potion _ , one about the rise and fall of the Dark Arts, and just one more about Wizarding Games and Sports.

Both her parents had raised their eyebrows about her selection, specifically the last one.

In her defense,  _ Magical Matches: A History of Wizarding Games and Sports _ had been alone on the sale shelf, and it had looked lonely there.

When Ron had sent Pig with the invitation to the Quidditch World Cup, she had responded yes immediately.

It did strike her as a little strange that she had pulled so many books about sports from the library this summer, a topic she had previously read nothing about, only to be invited to the biggest sporting match in the wizarding world. But the coincidence was slight enough that Hermione was willing to dismiss it. 

Sort of.

As much as she loved her parents, they hadn’t eased up on their hovering, and about once a week at dinner she would still get questions about how she might improve her academic performance and hints that she should perhaps, maybe, definitely try to get back in Professor Trelawney’s good graces, because didn’t Hermione want to be the best student she could be? Didn’t she want to have good employment prospects and post graduate schooling options? Why was she foreclosing this avenue of learning so early on in her career?

She didn’t yell at them and storm off, but it was a close thing some nights. 

Her parents weren’t happy that she would be leaving early, but they did begin talking about the adults-only vacation they would take while she was away, so she was reassured that they weren’t too torn up about her absence.

Her list arrived shortly before she had to leave for the Burrow, so she got her parents to stay in The Leaky Cauldron while she did her shopping.

Strangely they didn’t put up a fight about her doing her own shopping in Diagon Alley alone. They wouldn’t let her get there herself—they had insisted on accompanying her through London to reach the wizarding shopping area, but once she was there they had no interest in going in. The oddity of the place had been too much for them the last time they had accompanied her.

Hermione puzzled over it as she walked first to Gringotts to exchange money and then to Flourish and Blotts.

Part of it was fear. She still remembered the look in her father’s eyes as Professor McGonagall had transformed from human to cat and back in front of them when the Transfiguration Professor had brought Hermione's invitation letter to Hogwarts.

But it was more than fear. It was also something like willful ignorance.

It was like her parents didn’t fully believe that magic was real, despite them sending her to school for it. They seemed to think that it was all fun and games, like wizards and witches were playing at magic, as if it wasn’t deadly in the wrong hands.

She couldn’t do anything about the fear, and since her parent’s ignorance about magic made her life easier, she let them continue to think that.

She picked up the rest of the books she hadn’t already gotten. Namely the new DADA textbook as well as a few more books that caught her eye. She wondered why she needed a fancy dress. Was there some sort of ritual or ceremony that the Fourth Years got to participate in that required that? She made a mental note to remember to ask Percy or the twins if that was the case.

* * *

Mr. Weasley came to pick her up the next day, Apparating to a nearby point and walking the short distance to her house early on a Monday morning. It was just him, and she found herself a little disappointed; she had hoped Ron would come along to collect her, but she let that feeling go as she hugged both parents goodbye.

Her parents had requested she be picked up a day earlier than Ron had said in his letter, so that they would be able to make the flights they had booked.

Arthur had met her parents the previous year on their trip to Diagon Alley, so her parents were fine with letting him take her to the Burrow. He shrank her trunk and placed it in his pocket before something caught his eye.

Mr. Weasley looked around her home with undisguised curiosity.

“Is the whole house wired for ecclec-ekle-ektricity?” He leaned down to examine a plug in the entryway to the house.

Her parents exchanged a concerned look and Hermione did her best to hustle Mr. Weasley out the door, taking a step towards her front door, but all of his attention was focused on the wall, as he squatted down to run a finger over the plug socket.

“Electricity. Yes, it is, Mr. Weasley.” She did her best to keep the annoyance out of her voice, but her parents were looking concerned, as if his interest and lack of knowledge about electricity might be giving them second thoughts about entrusting him with their daughter.

“And who has access to it? Is it everywhere?” Mr. Weasley stood and dusted his hands on his robes, still looking at the plug holes.

Hermione frowned, trying to think. “Sort of? You pay for access, and it's in your home or flat. Businesses and companies pay for access in their offices or storefronts.”

Mr. Weasley made an interested noise in the back of his throat.

“So it’s not like magic then, where it’s accessible for free?”

She had never thought about it that way. “No, I guess not.”

“Is it a finite resource? Is that why it costs money?”

She worried the inside of her cheek, trying to think. She hadn’t ever taken a class on this, and all her knowledge was pieced together from having lived in the Muggle world. “Actually, I’m not sure, Mr. Weasley. I know that some methods of producing electricity use non-renewable fuel sources. But I think that you can use wind and the sun for other ones.”

“Hmm… interesting.” Mr. Weasley refocused on her parents who were looking at him like he hadn’t been speaking English, but they still politely returned the nod he gave them in parting. “Well then, we’ll be off! Hermione, take my hand, we will Disapparate from here and Apparate to the Burrow. Is this your first time doing side-along?”

Hermione nodded and took the hand he offered, waving quickly at her parents with her free hand.

“Well, this might be an unpleasant experience then.” With no notice she felt as if her insides were being twisted and she was being compressed, and then in a  _ pop _ she was in the kitchen of the Burrow.

Mrs. Weasley was the only one in the kitchen when she arrived, and the house was more silent than Hermione imagined it would be.

“Oh, Hermione.” The older woman bustled over and gave her a distracted hug. “Welcome, it’s so lovely to have you here. Ron and Ginny are somewhere around here. Can you give me a hand with lunch? The lot of them will be in soon and we want to be sure they have full plates.”

Hermione swallowed hard once and then again, still nauseous from the side-along.

“Of course, Mrs. Weasley,” she said, glancing at Mr. Weasley.

He nodded encouragingly at her. “I’ll just pop your trunk up to Ginny’s room then, you go ahead and help Molly. I’m sure one of the kids will give you a tour later.”

Hermione nodded reluctantly and then turned to see Mrs. Weasley still bustling around the kitchen. Helping with lunch entailed putting together a salad, mixing lemonade, cutting bread for sandwiches, and setting the table, while Mrs. Weasley complained about Fred and George, their lack of discipline, and the O.W.L. scores and their order forms. 

Hermione briefly wondered why Mrs. Weasley wasn’t doing this via magic. Maybe she wanted Hermione to feel useful? Maybe the woman just wanted company? Maybe what magic could do at one time was limited?

About 15 minutes later the Weasley children began stumbling in. The twins were mysteriously covered in soot, and when Mrs. Weasley caught sight of them, she scowled at them and jabbed her wand violently in their direction, knocking the soot off. It also left Fred missing an eyebrow and George missing a patch of hair right above his ear. 

The boys laughed and settled in at the table while Mrs. Weasley blushed red. Hermione wasn’t sure if the blush was residual anger or embarrassment for going a little overboard with her cleaning charm in her annoyance.

Ron was the next one in the room, coming in from the backyard somewhere.

“Oi, Mione!” Ron’s eyes widened with surprise. “What are you doing here?”

She blinked hard and then her eyes narrowed, focusing on Ron. “You invited me, Ron. You sent Pig with the letter, remember?”

“I didn’t think you’d be interested though,” Ron said as he sat down and pulled over a very full plate of food his mother had fixed up. “You do know the World Cup is Quidditch, right?”

Hermione found her own seat, and Mrs. Weasley gave her a plate. “Yes Ronald, I am aware. I also sent you a reply to your letter saying I’d be here.”

“Oh yeah, Mum handled that.” Ron shrugged

The only thing Hermione had to say to that was “Oh.” She didn’t have much of an appetite now and started to pick at her food while the Weasley family talked over each other.

“So, when are we going to get Harry?” Ron asked his father, his mouth full of egg. 

Mr. Weasley had come to the kitchen with the boys, and he too was tucking into dinner. “We’re going to go get him Monday. I talked to Marchbanks over in the Floo Network Connection Department and he said he’ll be able to hook up Harry’s Aunt and Uncle’s house.”

“Did you remember to send Pig with an invite? I popped that letter in one of those boxes yesterday, but I’m not sure it will get there.” Mrs. Weasley remarked, having gone right from finishing breakfast to washing dishes.

“I’ll do that in a minute,” Ron said with a lazy wave of his hand that wasn’t holding his fork.

Ginny ran down the stairs and stopped short when she saw Hermione, practically tripping down the last few stairs.

“Hermione, I didn’t know you were coming! Mum! I thought you said Harry would be here?” Ginny looked nice; her cheeks were pink and it was obvious she had taken the time to dress with care.

“We said Monday,” Ron said, his mouth still full. Hermione pressed her lips together in distaste.

“But you’ll be coming to the World Cup with us, right, Hermione?” Ginny settled in next to Hermione and reached for her own plate with a smile.

“Yes, I’m looking forward to it,” Hermione said, biting into a piece of toast.

“Excellent, so it won’t be just me in the girl’s tent!” Ginny’s smile was infectious.

Hermione didn’t know the other girl all that well, but she had helped Ginny some during the last school year catching up on work that she missed while distracted by the whole thing with the Diary. Hermione had given Ginny her notes and had even read over and corrected a few essays for the other girl.

The conversation at the table soon devolved into arguments about the World Cup and about whose turn it was to de-gnome the garden. Hermione stayed quiet. She wasn’t used to such rowdy meal time. Weeks with her parents had gotten her used to near silence occasionally broken by pointed questions. The boisterousness of the Weasleys was off-putting.

Hermione was helping to clear the table when there was a knock at the front door.

Ginny bounced out of the kitchen and less than a minute later her high-pitched laughter could be heard from the entrance way.

Two redheads Hermione didn’t recognize came into the kitchen, the older one carrying Ginny like a sack of potatoes over his shoulder. Ginny was laughingly demanding to be put down, kicking her legs into the handsome man’s chest.

Mrs. Weasley hurried to greet the newcomers. Though Hermione had not yet met them, she did recognize them as Ron’s older brothers she hadn’t met. They had the distinct look of Weasleys. 

After enthusiastic greetings all around, Hermione was introduced. She was proud she only stuttered once when the taller one, Bill, winked at her as he said that he had heard all about her.

The days between Hermione’s arrival and the trip to pick up Harry were a period of adjustment. She had gotten so used to spending her days in silence and alone during the summer, that being thrown into the deep end of a huge family—all of whom were loud—meant that Hermione had to stop jumping at loud noises or sudden movements.

It was nice, though; the Weasleys treated her with kindness. She stayed in Ginny’s room, and they talked about the upcoming year and about how annoying it was for Ginny to have so many brothers. During the morning she would help Ron with the homework he had procrastinated on, then at lunch she would try to sit near Percy or Bill so she could ask them about their jobs. Her career path after Hogwarts was something she had started to worry a lot about. Her parents had started harping on about uni, and she didn’t have a full enough understanding of what post secondary education looked like in the wizarding world to be able to argue with them that going to Cambridge or Oxford would mean nothing in magical society.

After lunch, she would help Mrs. Weasley clean up and then would take a book out into the backyard and pretend to watch as the Weasley children played a game of Quidditch or just generally roughhoused.

It was a pleasant few days, and it was nice not to have to explain herself or defend her actions at every turn, though she did miss her privacy some.

Finally, Monday arrived. Mr. Weasley stood in front of the fireplace, checking that the connection to the Dursley’s was set up. To Hermione’s surprise, Ron and both of the twins were eagerly waiting to accompany their dad to pick Harry up.

She did her best to ignore how something in her chest twisted a little as she watched Fred and George pat down their pockets and grin mischievously at each other.

Everyone was waiting for Harry to arrive. Ginny was bouncing on her toes and Mrs. Weasley was preparing a special meal for him. She did her best not to compare her welcome with Harry's, after all, Harry deserved a loving family like the Weasleys. 

Harry arrived a few minutes later, and his welcome was warm and enthusiastic. His hug to Hermione was brief, and he seemed so excited to be surrounded by people who actually cared about him. Hermione supposed that it must be nice to go from a family who wants nothing to do with you, to one who dotes on you the way the Weasleys doted on him—that sort of family must be like a drug to him.

Dinner went well, and the food was delicious, as always. She kept quiet, listening to snippets of various conversations. Mrs. Weasley’s dismay over Bill’s earring was endearing, and though Percy could be a little dull, his discussion about cauldron bottoms did hold her interest briefly. She had been listening to Ron and the twins debate Keeper strategies in Quidditch, smiling indulgently and pretending to care, when Percy and Mr. Weasley’s conversation caught her attention again. 

“She left for her vacation in Albania more than a month ago.” Percy pushed his horn-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose with one finger.

Hermione quickly turned, her full attention going to the two men.  _ Albania _ , sure, there were only so many countries in the world. But it was odd. The first time she'd ever really though about Albania had been when she read the biography of Mother Theresa and she couldn't recall even hearing the country mentioned before.

“I told Ludo he needed to do something about that. She’s been gone for over a month.”

Someone had disappeared in Albania?

Maybe this was one of those things where you learn something new and then suddenly begin to hear about it all over the place. This was surely just a coincidence, nothing more.

Because her experiments had failed, and that meant that Bibliomancy was nothing, or at least it was nothing for her. But if it was—if she was wrong—and this was real...

She'd pulled books on murder, on torture, and pain.

She picked up her fork, focusing on her plate to dry to steady her thoughts, but she found that the food on her plate tasted like ash in her mouth.

It was hard to focus on any conversation after that. She was distracted the rest of the night, always circling back to her experiments.

What if it resisted traditional methods of experimentation? What if there was something to Professor Trelawney’s imprecise and loose approach? If it couldn’t be measured, if it couldn’t be controlled, then how could she even use it? How could she interpret results if she didn’t know what question it was answering?

She managed to focus long enough to hear from Harry that he had been in contact with Sirius before Mrs. Weasley hustled the lot of them up to bed.

Sleep came slowly, and when she dreamt it was of books and words just out of her grasp.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the non-magical books mentioned are real (though the PTSD one is a scholarly paper and not a book). The publication dates aren't perfect, but I did my best to find books that would have been around. 
> 
> [From Shell Shock and War Neurosis to Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: A History of Psychotraumatology by Marc-Antoine Crocq, MD and Louis Crocq, MD ](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181586/)
> 
> [Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the Saint of Calcutta Kindle Edition](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000UZJQD2/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)  
> by Mother Teresa and Brian Kolodiejchuk
> 
> [Michel Guérard’s Cuisine Minceur by Michel Guérard ](https://www.amazon.com/Michel-Guerards-Cuisine-Minceur-English/dp/0688066674/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=Michel+Gu%C3%A9rard%E2%80%99s+Cuisine+Minceur&qid=1601153132&s=digital-text&sr=1-1)
> 
> [All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque](https://www.amazon.com/All-Quiet-Western-Front-Novel-ebook/dp/B00DAD25O8/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=All+Quiet+on+the+Western+Front&qid=1601153178&s=digital-text&sr=1-2)
> 
> [The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William M. Shirer](https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Fall-Third-Reich-ebook/dp/B07XD76H41/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=The+Rise+and+Fall+of+the+Third+Reich&qid=1601153242&s=digital-text&sr=1-2)
> 
> [No Resurrection by Robinson Jeffers](https://www.poeticous.com/robinson-jeffers/no-resurrection) (also it's just a great poem, I recommend reading the whole thing, it's not that long and ends with the lines "Dead man, be quiet. A fool of a merchant, who’d sell good earth / And grass again to make modern flesh." Which I think is really lovely.
> 
> Again, this is the only fic I'll be updating until mid-October given IRL things.
> 
> I'd love to hear from you! Either in the comments or [on my tumblr,](misseylux.tumblr.com) where my ask box is always open!


	3. World Cup Highlights: The Best Matches Ever by Otto Bagman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My everlasting and eternal love to [weestarmeggie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weestarmeggie/pseuds/weestarmeggie) and [NuclearNik](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NuclearNik) for alpha-beta-ing.
> 
> All mistakes my own.

Hermione was half awake the next morning as they traipsed across Ottery St. Catchpole and up Stoat’s Head Hill to go find the portkey. She had a lot of questions about portkey travel, but by the time she was awake enough to remember them, she was out of breath from climbing the incline.

She really did need to build up her endurance.

“Mr. Weasley?” She finally caught her breath at the top. Mr. Weasley was looking on the ground, pausing every once in a while to lean down and poke at a piece of rubbish or a pine cone before shaking his head and moving on.

“Yes, Hermione?”

“How do you know what piece of rubbish is a portkey? I would imagine that there are a lot of things that could be enchanted to be portkeys. How do you find which one they used before it’s set to leave? And how do they decide what should be used? And how does it get here? Why don’t they deliver it to your home instead of having you traipse into the middle of nowhere?”

“Hm…” Mr. Weasley looked around some more, still distracted. “Well, in terms of how you find one, it’s one of those things you just know. There is magic on it, and you can sense it.”

“What do you mean, sense it?” Hermione was unable to contain her interruption. “Like is there a pull? Do you feel something?”

“Not exactly. It will catch your eye, and then you’ll pick it up. It’s not that magic pulls you; it’s that something inside of you knows and you're drawn to it without realising it. There’s nothing you feel differently because magic is part of you. It just calls to a part of you. You don’t necessarily feel anything different, but you will know.”

Hermione had never heard a less satisfactory answer.

But she let it go. Mr. Weasley was being waved over by a man she didn’t recognise. Maybe she could ask Professor Flitwick about it once school started.

  
  


* * *

  
  


By the time they arrived and set up camp, Hermione was ready for a nap, but she refrained from complaining. Instead, she accompanied the boys to go get water in a desperate attempt to avoid being interrogated more about Muggle camping by Mr. Weasley.

She also wanted to see if she could talk to Harry and Ron about Sirius, and maybe at least mention Bibliomancy.

The previous night had shaken her. She had dismissed Bibliomancy as a whole after the failure of her experiments over the summer, but hearing about Albania at dinner had made her doubt herself. Maybe the boys would give her some perspective or at least serve as a sounding board. 

The opportunity arose as they waited in line for the water pump.

“Did either of you read about Bibliomancy in your Divination textbooks from last year?”

Ron rubbed the bridge of his nose with his free hand, squinting at her. “Was it on the test? I thought you dropped that class.”

Hermione focused on the spigot but was distracted by an older man in a nightdress who was arguing with a ministry employee. The altercation between the two broke through her angst about Bibliomancy, and instead she and the boys laughed until it was time for them to fill up their buckets.

She got their attention again on the walk back. Harry’s head was on a swivel, taking in all the decorations and magical tents.

“So, Bibliomancy?” she prompted.

Both boys shrugged, distracted.

“Well, it was just that something weird happened at the end of last year.” She kept her voice down, and her eyes were on their surroundings, making sure no one was close enough to overhear.

Harry snorted. “Weirder than the man responsible for the murder of your parents turning into a rat and fleeing justice?”

Her mouth twisted in a rueful smile. “Well, no.”

“I think the bar for weird is a bit high now.” Harry’s voice was dry, and the water in his bucket sloshed as he repositioned it on his arm.

“Well, it was just that I read about Bibliomancy, and I tried it, and—” Her words came out in a low rush; she wanted them to know, to get their opinion.

“Hold up, what is bibliography?” Ron interrupted.

“Bibliomancy. It’s using books to—uhm—well, to tell the future,” she said.

“I thought that you said that was all rubbish.” Ron raised his eyebrows and looked at her in surprise.

“Well, I still think it probably is.” Her tone was peevish; she couldn’t help it. “It’s just that last year when I tried it—when I tried to use Bibliomancy—back in September, I pulled books on Animagi, Wolfsbane potion, and the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. At the time I didn’t think anything of it, but when I went to return all the library books in June, it seemed really weird that they all were connected, and that each had something to do with everything that happened in June.”

“I mean, maybe. I guess.” Harry’s brow was furrowed, and he shifted on his feet, transferring the bucket he was holding from one hand to the other.

“I can’t believe you’re still mad about Trelawney saying that books were useless for Divination, so you’re insisting on a form of telling the future using only books. Sounds a bit suspect to me, Hermione.” She could have been imagining it, but she thought Ron’s tone sounded smug and superior. Maybe he was pleased that she had been unsuccessful at something he had persisted in doing.

“Have you tried it again?” Harry asked.

“Sort of. It didn’t really work though, but maybe my approach was wrong? I don’t know.” Hermione could feel the blush on her cheeks, embarrassed about her failure.

“What did you pull books on? Was one about how to stop trying so hard?” Ron’s tone was jovial, but his words felt like a slap.

“Ron! No, I don’t know. There were a bunch that I didn’t see any connection to: some about dragons, coping with nightmares, and a lot of poetry. But I did pull a lot of books about sports, and then you invited me to the World Cup. And then there was a book I pulled on Albania, and your dad and Percy were talking about Albania last night. So, I mean, I don’t know.” The blush had spread from her cheeks and she could feel it all the way down the back of her neck. This was foolish. She should never have brought it up.

Harry’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “Coping with nightmares?”

_ That's odd. _

There was something in his eyes that made Hermione want to push, but they were close to their tent, and she sensed that maybe this wasn’t the time.

“Yeah, a couple of the books were self help books,” she said instead. She really wanted to ask why Harry cared about the book on nightmares. Maybe if she told him about the other books, that might help? She grimaced, trying to remember. “There was another about how to deal with having an abusive father. I don’t know who or what those things would apply to though. When I pulled books, I could never get an answer to my definitive question. It might be nothing. It’s probably nothing.”

“You’re right, Hermione. It’s nothing.” Ron said, reaching for the tent flap. 

Harry nodded in agreement, but his lips stayed pressed together. 

“‘Sides,” Ron said over his shoulder, holding the flap open for Harry and her, “if you really could tell the future or whatever from books, then you would be able to tell us what the score of this game is going to be.”

She placed her bucket of water down next to where Ron had put his and wiped her hands on her jeans.

“I don’t know, Ron. I’ve only ever selected books from a library…” She didn’t want to do this. If it worked then it would make her more nervous, and if it didn’t work, she had the feeling Ron would just tease her more.

“Well, I’ve got a book on the greatest World Cup games. Flip through that and pick a page that tells you the score!” Ron’s smile made Hermione want to wince. He was too enthusiastic about this for her comfort.

“Yeah, it couldn’t hurt any.” Harry added. He looked less gung-ho about it, but he still seemed interested.

“Okay, I guess.” She tried to make her reluctance obvious in her voice, drawing each word out slowly, but neither boy noticed.

The book on Bibliomancy, which she had brought with her for no reason she could discern, had a section about finding passages, paragraphs, or even words that she could Divine from. But if she was having trouble with whole books, she doubted she would have much success on a more granular level.

They helped Mr. Weasley finish setting up the tent and settled back inside it to wait for when they could take their seats in the stadium.

Ron took this opportunity to rummage around the bag his mother had packed—Hermione could tell from the neatly folded clothes that he hadn’t had a hand in packing—to find his book on the Quidditch World Cup.

He tossed it over to Hermione and she caught it, wincing slightly at him treating books with such disregard.

“There you go, Hermione. Have at it.” Ron leaned back and grabbed a Quidditch magazine that he had pulled out along with the book.

The volume was obviously well loved, the red fabric of the cover fraying slightly at the corners. She smoothed a hand over the embossed letters:  _ World Cup Highlights: The Best Matches Ever _ by Otto Bagman.

“Okay, I’ll give it a go, I guess.” Hermione opened the book and took a deep breath.

She closed her eyes, feeling self-conscious. Doing her best to focus her thoughts on the match they were about to see, she cleared her mind of everything but the upcoming game. 

She opened her eyes and started flipping through the pages. Again, she felt nothing. There was no pull or spark of magic she felt as she turned the page again and again.

This was a waste of time. She decided to stop on a random page that had a terrible picture of a man on a broom crashing into the ground again and again. The caption below the picture read:

_Harvey Windbanger, Seeker,_ _pictured above, sought to redeem his untalented team by single-handedly winning the match, snatching dignity from the jaws of defeat._

“So is that it?” Ron asked, grabbing the book out of Hermione’s hands.

Harry moved so he could look over Ron’s shoulder. “This doesn’t have a score. What does this mean?”

“I don’t know.” Hermione rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Maybe someone will lose, but with dignity?”

“Now you sound like Harry and me when we’re doing our Divination homework.” Ron laughed. “I foresee a terrible accident in your future as well.” He waved his fingers in front of his face, using the same voice he had mocked Professor Trelawney with.

Harry laughed, but Hermione couldn’t suppress her wince.

She huffed out an annoyed sigh. “I don’t know, Ron. I told you, I don’t know if this even works.”

“Obviously not.” Ron was still laughing.

Fred and George stepped into the tent, peering at the three of them. “What are you lot up to?”

“Hermione’s trying to tell the future, ” Harry said, a teasing grin on his face.

“Yeah, Trelawney told her she was bad at something and couldn't do it, and all these months later Hermione is still trying to prove Trelawney wrong.” Ron’s teasing was starting to hurt a little. She knew that he enjoyed it when she wasn’t good at something, but this was a bit much.

“I am not, Ron.” She closed the book with a snap and turned to focus on the twins. “It was just that there was a weird coincidence last year, and I wanted to test it.”

“So what have you predicted?” Fred asked, plopping down next to Ron on the lower bunk.

Hermione waved her hand; she wanted everyone to stop harping on about this. “I don’t know, probably nothing.”

“She thinks that the outcome of this match will involve snatching dignity from defeat or some rot,” Ron offered up, going back to flipping through the Quidditch magazine.

“And what do you think that means?” asked George.

“I don’t know.” One of her hands tangled in her hair as she tried to think. The slight tug helped her clear her thoughts. “Maybe one team will lose, but the other will do something noble or good or something?”

The twins exchanged a thoughtful look. “Well,” said George, “maybe one player will end the match in some sort of dignified fashion? Even though their team was losing?"

“Sounds like rubbish.” Ron was no longer paying attention to the conversation, fully immersed in the magazine.

Harry shrugged and made a noncommittal noise but watched the twins closely.

“Could be…” Fred trailed off, his eyes on his twin. George nodded to the unspoken part of the statement, and the two abruptly stood and left the tent.

“Hey, Harry, did you see this?” Ron said, shaking the magazine in Harry’s direction. Harry leaned his head in and soon they were back discussing Quidditch strategy. Hermione stayed where she was, hand still on the cover of the book.   
  


* * *

The match had been more fun than Hermione had anticipated. She had read a little bit about collective effervescence, but to experience it herself was something else. It was like being at a Hogwarts game times a thousand.

She hadn’t fallen asleep and was still vibrating a little from the adrenaline of the game when Bill shook her shoulder, telling her to get up and that something was going on.

Dread immediately pooled in her stomach, heavy and cold.

She pulled on shoes as quickly as she could and was hustled out of the tent. She heard the laughter and jeers first, and then the screams. The sight of the Muggle woman, flipped upside-down and body contorted, brought bile into Hermione's mouth, sharp and sour. She swallowed hard but the taste lingered. Her heart rate sped up, and she resisted the urge to just start running and never stop.

She had been right to think that she needed to work on her endurance. They reached what she hoped was the safety of the woods, and she was woefully out of breath and had a stitch in her side.

Wrapping her arms around herself, she tried to get her bearings. Though it was still August, it was too cold for her bare legs under her nightgown. Harry and Ron had stuck close, but they had lost the rest of the Weasleys in the madness.

They got to the forest and stopped short. The mob pressed back against the Ministry wizards who were ineffectual in their attempts to quell the riot.

The people running were like a wave, pressing against them, buffeting them and forcing them along. Ron yelled out and her panic increased. She lit her wand to try to find out where Ron had gone, hoping he wasn’t injured enough to stop their progress.

That’s when a voice cut through the darkness, taunting Ron. She turned quickly, her wild curls whipping her cheek.

The narrow beam of light from her wand lit a figure in the dark.

Draco Malfoy was leaning up against a tree, alone, and surprisingly relaxed for how close the screams were to him. How strange it was to see him by himself. He was rarely alone at school, it was weird to see him without his sycophants. 

It looked like he had been watching the mob from a gap in the trees.

“Oh, go fuck yourself, Malfoy,” Ron bit out, scowling at Malfoy.

“Language, Weasley.” Hermione thought something close to a smile flicked across his face, but it could have been a trick of the light.

He was taller, she thought distractedly as she panted, trying to catch her breath. When she had punched him just a few months ago, reaching his face had been easy. It would be harder if she tried to do that now. 

“Hadn’t you better be hurrying along now? You wouldn’t like  _ her _ spotted, would you?” He nodded at Hermione and the light from her wand highlighted his hair, making it look more white than usual. It wasn’t slicked back like it normally as in school. It almost looked soft.

His expression had shifted, though, and that didn’t look soft at all though. His look was one of pure disgust, the twist of his lips making his face look ugly and angry.

A sound like a bomb made her jump, and she peered anxiously at the riot, which seemed to be getting larger, not smaller. Hermione looked around frantically; they should leave—the noises of the mob were getting closer.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she said, eyes focusing on Malfoy’s face. The adrenaline racing through her veins made her words confrontational. She might not be able to stand up against the masked figures torturing those poor Muggles, but she could stand up against Malfoy.

“Granger, they’re after Muggles. D’you want to be showing off your knickers in midair? Because if you do, hang around… they’re moving this way, and it would give us all a laugh." His drawl somehow downed out the screams from behind them, and she met his eyes. Her stomach twisted with fear. There were shadows under his eyes that she hadn’t noticed in the box during the match. She wondered if it was the low lighting in these woods or if he hadn’t been sleeping well.

"Hermione’s a witch." Harry snarled, and she resisted rolling her eyes. She was not a witch to those people in a way that mattered, though the sentiment was sweet.

Draco’s eyes snapped to Harry, and he scoffed softly, a malicious smirk crossing his face. "Have it your own way, Potter. If you think they can’t spot a Mudblood, stay where you are."

The slur didn’t register much with her beyond a prick of annoyance. It was a dumb word, and though she knew she should be offended by it, she couldn’t muster the necessary outrage. The people behind them who would be happy to torture her to death were of a more pressing concern than a foul name.

“You watch your mouth,” shouted Ron. Apparently he was less able to let the insult stand, and she grabbed his arm to keep him from lunging forward.

Malfoy was right though, they did need to keep going.

“Never mind, Ron,” she said, pulling on his arm. The last thing they needed was for him to get in a fist fight with Malfoy as they tried to escape from a riot.

An even louder noise—a boom that made her bones rattle—shook through the trees. Several people nearby screamed.

Malfoy chuckled, a light sound in the dark woods. “Scare easily, don’t they?” his voice permeated the silence that followed the explosion. He used a careless hand to brush a strand of hair out of his face, and his mouth hitched up at a corner into a smile. “I suppose your daddy told you all to hide. What’s he up to? Trying to rescue the Muggles?” The mocking note in his voice made it clear he thought that was a dirty thing to do.

Hermione gnawed on the inside of her cheek. She bit too hard and the coppery taste of her blood filled her mouth.

They really needed to go, but Harry was angry now, practically spitting his words out at Malfoy. “Where are your parents? Out there, wearing masks, are they?”

Malfoy looked at Harry, still smiling. “Well if they were I wouldn’t be likely to tell you, would I, Potter?”

“Come on,” said Hermione with a disgusted look at Malfoy. “Let’s go and find the others.”

She met Malfoy’s gaze and saw the disdain there that she was sure was mirrored in her own expression.

“Keep that big bushy head down, Granger.” Malfoy's upper lip pulled back in a sneer. His eyes flicked up and down her body, catching on her bare legs briefly before looking back to the mob.

“Come on,” Hermione repeated, and she grabbed both Harry and Ron, pulling them up the path.

As they continued on, she couldn’t help but look back at Malfoy. He was watching her, his eyes still dark, before he pushed away from the tree. They turned a corner and she lost sight of him.

As they pressed on deeper into the woods, she wondered if Draco had been giving them a warning or a threat.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Hermione didn’t get any sleep that night, even after the mob had been dispersed and she had been tucked back in the top bunk.

She tossed and turned, even as she heard Ginny’s soft snores fill their tent. It was partly the come down from running through the forest away from the mob who would have had her up there, upside-down, hurting.

But also it was that there had been a riot after a sports match. 

Which is exactly what  _ Among the Thugs _ , that book she had pulled about football riots, had talked about. How drinking, testosterone, and anger combined sometimes after especially rowdy matches and let people release their destructive urges. Thinking about the book brought her sharply back to the memory of pulling the book from the shelf. How the thin plastic over-cover of the library book has crinkled under her fingers as she had held it, skimming through the table of contents all those weeks ago, how she had dismissed it as irrelevant to her experiments.

She turned on to her back to stare at the canvas of the tent above her.

What if her underlying hypothesis had been flawed? What if it had not been predictable in the way she had anticipated? What if there was power there, but there wasn’t consistency? Would that mean that the other books she had pulled—the ones about resurrection, war, torture, and death—would be relevant to her life someday soon?

Her thoughts circled back again and again to how it had felt to see the riot before her very eyes. How it felt to be told by Draco that she, not just they, but she specifically, needed to run.

The taste of fear lingered in the back of her throat as she tossed and turned.

The more pressing question was that if Bibliomancy was real, if she had an actual talent for it, then what did the other books she pulled mean for the future?

She didn’t stop thinking until the sun rose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I get my life back on Wednesday. While that won't impact the posting schedule for this fic, if you're following any of my other WIPs, those should get back up and running after that. 
> 
> The books mentioned:
> 
> [Among the Thugs by Bill Buford](https://www.amazon.com/Among-Thugs-Bill-Buford/dp/0679745351)
> 
> As always, my ask box [on tumblr](misselylux.tumblr.com) is always open.
> 
> Comments are my love language.


	4. We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please mind the additional tags (implied/referenced child abuse and implied/referenced abuse), I totally forgot to include them in the original tags, and I really apologize for that. It comes up in this chapter, and will come up periodically in the rest of the fic. The other tag I added (torture) will come up much later, and I'll put a warning in the authors note for that chapter too when it comes.
> 
> I am forever in debt to both [weestarmeggie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weestarmeggie/pseuds/weestarmeggie) and [NuclearNik](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NuclearNik) for alpha-beta-ing.
> 
> All remaining mistakes are my own.

The return trip to the Burrow was done in near silence that was only broken by Mrs. Weasley’s loud hiccuping sobs as she rushed from the door to greet them. She fussed over the twins and Hermione snuck into the house, avoiding eye contact with everyone else. 

She made Mrs. Weasley a very strong cup of tea to keep her hands busy as she stewed. It was clear that there was some fuss over what the paper was reporting about the post-match riot.

She was still shaken from the whole experience—from the riot, from Malfoy, from the Dark Mark. And she was still furious about the Muggles who were tortured, about how Winky was treated, about the blank look on Mr. Robert’s face as he waved goodbye to them.

When Harry obviously signaled that he wanted to talk to her and Ron, she followed him upstairs, but she hadn’t been prepared for what he told them.

Nightmares.

Harry had been having nightmares, and if the worried look on his face was any indicator, he was taking them very seriously.

Her mouth was running before her brain had fully processed what Harry was saying. There were books—books that might be able to help him—that she began to rattle off. Or maybe Professor Dumbledore or Madam Pomfrey would know. There was definitely a St. Mungo’s department that specialised in curses and curse scars.

All the time her thought was that if that book about dealing with nightmares had been for Harry, who was the book on the rise of facism in Germany for?

The rest of her stay at the Burrow was less than pleasant.

Part of it was that she couldn’t shake what had happened after the World Cup. 

Whenever she would have a moment of silence, she would be back in the forest running away from the explosions and the screams of strangers. And she couldn't stop thinking about what she should do about the notebook with the summaries of the books she had pulled over the summer.

The other part— the larger part, to be honest—was the people. Percy kept on trying to convince her that Barty Crouch was a faultless paragon of moral virtue, which Hermione couldn’t believe given how he treated a creature that was essentially enslaved to him.

Mrs. Weasley would range from weepy to angry and back again in the space of less than five minutes.

Hermione had also become aware that the twins had taken to watching her when she was in the room. It was subtle enough that she didn’t notice it at first. After the third time she caught them, though, she couldn’t stop herself.

“Do I have something on my face?”

“No,” Fred—she thought it was Fred, but she didn’t actually know—said.

“It’s just that,” George hesitated, exchanging a look with his twin.

‘It’s just that you were right,” Fred finished, plopping down on the couch next to her.

“Right about what?” Hermione asked, leaning back so she could see both boys' faces.

“Well, you were right. There was dignity that was had in defeat... at the World Cup.” George perched on the arm of the sofa behind Fred.

Hermione’s brow furrowed, and her mouth turned down in a confused frown.

Fred looked at her earnestly. “You said that there would be dignity taken from defeat in the outcome of the World Cup. And you were right. Krum salvaged his and his team’s dignity from a much greater loss by catching the snitch, even though that meant he lost.” 

Her mouth dropped open, and she felt the air flee her lungs, leaving her dizzy and breathless.

“We had been kicking around betting that Ireland would win but Krum would catch the snitch. And then you said that, so we made the bet.” George shrugged, but his stare was intense.

It was alarming on many levels that the twins would bet their entire life savings on something that she was unsure was reliable. But it was the glint in their eyes that was really worrying her.

“So,” Fred leaned forward conspiratorially, “any more insights about what’s next?”

Hermione’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly several times.

“No,” she finally croaked out. “No, that was—what I mean to say—Bibliomancy—it wasn’t real—I can’t—I don’t...”

She shut her mouth with a firm click to stop herself from babbling any more, instead settling for a vehement shake of her head.

Biting down on the inside of her cheek, she shrugged helplessly and stood abruptly, fleeing their curious stares.

It was hard to avoid them for the next few days but not impossible.

When it came time for the train ride to Hogwarts, Hermione was deeply relieved to be leaving. but still unclear on what she should do about her maybe, potential, possible gift. 

If it was unreliable, then it wouldn’t be of much use. If it couldn’t be observed and replicated, then how could she rely on it for anything? Wouldn’t it just be better to ignore it, than to try to interpret every small thing in an attempt to stitch together a semi-coherent picture about what was to come?

If she couldn’t control it, then was it dangerous? What good was it? If she couldn’t even interpret any of the results then why should she bother with it?

She knew, deep down, that it was also fear spurring her response. If she was wrong about Divination, what else was she wrong about? If she couldn’t control this, couldn’t understand it, then what else would be inaccessible to her?

* * *

The announcement at the Welcome Feast that Professor Dumbledore made didn’t ease her fears. 

“The Triwizard Tournament was first established some seven hundred years ago as a friendly competition between the three largest European schools of wizardry: Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang. A champion was selected to represent each school, and the three champions competed in three magical tasks. The schools took it in turns to host the tournament once every five years, and it was generally agreed to be a most excellent way of establishing ties between young witches and wizards of different nationalities—until, that is, the death toll mounted so high that the tournament was discontinued.”

“ _ Death toll? _ ” Hermione’s heart started beating faster, and she couldn’t contain her alarm. She looked around the Great Hall and was unnerved to see that no one else looked concerned. This was a bad sign for her idea that maybe this year would be quiet; maybe this year she would be able to avoid a life and death situation.

So much for that. Professor Dumbledore’s following announcement of an age restriction only partially eased her fears.

She tried to distract herself with other things, tried to stop thinking about the deadly tournament and the slim blue volume that she had still after renewing the loan on the first day back.

Before she renewed the book on Bibliomancy, she had removed the pamphlet on domestic violence she had been using as a bookmark. She'd hesitated, ready to throw it away, but for some reason couldn’t bring herself to do it. So instead, she tucked it back into the book after a minute of contemplation, trying not to think about why she hadn’t wanted to bin it. It wasn’t like she or anyone she knew was being abused.

Instead she focused on the plight of house-elves. It was astounding how no one else seemed to be concerned about the enslavement of an entire race of creatures who were obviously sentient and capable of independent thought. She had tried to bring it up to Harry, who had just shrugged, deferring to Ron and the twins who'd said that the elves enjoyed their enslavement.

She pointedly avoided thinking about Bibliomancy. She tried to avoid thinking about books altogether, but that obviously didn’t work for long.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Not thinking about something was never a recipe for having a problem go away.

When Hermione began accumulating books from the library that she hadn’t specifically been searching out, she tried to ignore it. Tried to play it off as something she had always done. And that was true to some extent.

She had a history of accumulating books, so she tried to dismiss it as a habit she had long held and not a symptom of an affinity for this method of Divination she seemingly had no control over and no way to interpret.

Hermione had learned so much from books. She had learned about Narnia, French Revolutions, life of Nelson Mandela, magic. Books had saved her life in second year when she found out about Basilisks in time to warn Harry and Ron and avoid being killed by its gaze.

In the little notebook she had used over the summer to document the books she checked out from the library, she had noted the extra books she checked out. There was one on the history of the Triwizard Tournament that she justified as something she would have reached for anyway, given the circumstances. Though she couldn’t explain her interest in the dangers of the Tournament. A sick fascination perhaps?

In her textbook on Potions she had underlined the portion on Polyjuice multiple times without thinking. Maybe it was just her experience with the potion, but her quill still left indents on the page with how heavy her hand was.

In the book that Professor Babbling had assigned on Ancient Runes, for some reason the passage she always flipped to first was the one on using runes in rituals. She knew nothing about rituals; it was a class no longer taught at Hogwarts. But for some reason, despite the fact that she would be looking for the most recent required reading, it would always open at page 198, the start of  _ Chapter 5: Rune Use in Ritual _ .

She ignored it purposefully, though, and threw herself into trying to find out about house-elves and trying to get her readings and homework done early.

She had tried to broach the topic of the enslavement of house-elves with every professor other than Professor Snape, but all of them had given her nonplussed looks, brushing off her concerns with platitudes about how the house-elves liked slavery.

Hagrid had even told her that they enjoyed serving. That statement had made her clench her fists tightly, holding herself back from snapping at him.

S.P.E.W. won her no friends, and in fact isolated her further, but she couldn’t help herself. If no one else was going to do anything about this, then it was up to her.

There were some small amusements even though there was still an underlying nervousness to her everyday life, and one came shortly after the Welcome Feast, when Rita Skeeter had published an article that was unflattering towards Mr. and Mrs. Weasley. Of course, Malfoy had taken the opportunity to poke at Ron, and of course, Harry had intervened.

“You know your mother, Malfoy?” said Harry, slightly out of breath. Both he and Hermione were hanging on to the back of Ron’s robes to keep him from going after Malfoy. “That expression she’s got, like she’s got dung under her nose? Has she always looked like that, or was it just because you were with her?”

Hermione winced. Trust Harry to make things worse.

Malfoy’s mouth twisted into a sneer, and his pale face became pink, either in embarrassment or anger, Hermione couldn’t tell.

“Don’t you dare insult my mother, Potter.” Draco spat, glaring daggers at Harry.

Hermione rolled her eyes. This was ridiculous. She adjusted her grip on the back of Ron’s robes so she could pull him away from this situation.

“Keep your fat mouth shut, then,” yelled Harry, turning away.

It all happened in a moment, but before she knew it, there was a rather cute white ferret where Draco Malfoy had once been.

Professor Moody used his wand to bounce the ferret around, saying something about not cursing someone when his back was turned. Hermione’s eyes went wide as she took in a Professor, an adult, ostensibly charged with the care and protection of children, physically abusing a student.

Malfoy had sort of deserved it.

But still.

She worried the inside of her cheek and glanced around, wondering if she should get an adult. Another adult. Perhaps a more stable adult.

Professor McGonagall’s arrival waylaid her internal debate, and she watched as her Professor cried “No!” as she ran down the stairs and pulled out her wand. 

A moment later, with a loud snapping noise, Draco Malfoy reappeared, lying in a heap on the floor with his sleek blond hair in disarray all over his now brilliantly red and sweaty face. He got to his feet, wincing. Hermione winced slightly in sympathy.

It was a little funny, tThough she didn’t find Malfoy’s forced transformation into a ferret as amusing as the boys did. It was nice that for once Malfoy didn’t get away with his normal nonsense, but she did wish he’d gotten detention instead of been bounced around like a rubber ball.

The three of them walked in silence to the Great Hall.

“Don’t talk to me,” Ron said quietly to Harry and Hermione as they sat down at the Gryffindor table a few minutes later. Everyone at the table was still in a tizzy about what Professor Moody had done to Malfoy.

Ron’s eyes were shut, and his head was lowered as if in prayer.

“Why not?” said Hermione, furrowing her brow in confusion.

“Because I want to fix that in my memory forever,” said Ron, keeping his eyes closed, a blissed out smile on his face. “Draco Malfoy, the amazing bouncing ferret...”

Harry laughed, and a slightly pained smile twisted on Hermione’s face. Malfoy had been an ass, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to laugh. 

Grimacing slightly, she said, “He could have really hurt Malfoy, though. “It was good, really, that Professor McGonagall stopped it—”

“Hermione!” Ron’s tone was beyond irritated and his eyes snapped open. “You’re ruining the best moment of my life!”

Hermione scoffed and focused on her meal.

She didn’t bring up her concerns about Professor Moody again.

Malfoy could really have been injured though, and despite the admiration of Professor Moody from pretty much everyone other than the Slytherins, she was still nervous that a professor had been willing to use such brutal punishment on a fourteen year old boy. In addition, it showed poor judgment to expose the entire class to the most dangerous curses in the wizarding world. Perhaps he wasn’t a stable or reliable choice for Defence Against the Dark Arts professor.

She still did her best not to think about Bibliomancy.

* * *

Once the students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang arrived, she was distracted by researching their schools. That and avoiding the twittering crowd of girls that seemed to be permanently installed in the library once Krum started to frequent it.

But there was nothing new that implicated the books she had pulled over the summer, other than that one book about French cuisine, but she could brush that off as just another coincidence. Or she tried to, at least.

She was distracted, trying to focus on literally anything other than Bibliomancy the next day in the library without success. 

She had books strewn across her usual desk and had been staring off into the distance, contemplating what she should write about for the next Ancient Runes essay as her quill tapped absently on a blank piece of parchment.

A hand slapped down on her table, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Her eyes followed the pale hand up to a lanky arm in a Slytherin uniform.

Draco Malfoy glared at her, his customary sneer firmly in place.

“I don’t know what sort of barn you were raised in, Granger, but if you continue that infernal tapping of your quill I will not be held responsible for my actions.”

Hermione made a surprised noise in the back of her throat.

“Oh, uh, Malfoy. Sorry” The suddenness had startled her, and she was not up to the usually witty repartee she would normally have bitten back with. 

She moved her arm back slightly, and the tower of books she had haphazardly built around her tumbled a little, revealing the slim volume on Bibliomancy with the pamphlet on domestic violence sticking out.

Her eyes caught on the piece of paper and she plucked it from between the pages of the book, turning it over in her hand. The edges of it were a little battered from its use as a bookmark, but the bold font on the front was still very legible.

_ He Hits Me: What to do When You Have an Abusive Spouse _

She looked up at Malfoy, ready to ask why he was lingering, but his eyes were riveted to the pamphlet, and he looked pale—well, more pale than usual.

Her eyes quickly flicked from the domestic violence pamphlet to Malfoy a few times.

“Would you like this?” she asked, keeping her voice low and trying to sound as non-judgmental as possible.

His head jerked to the side in an abbreviated shake, but he still hadn’t looked away from the pamphlet, grey eyes glittering with something she couldn’t place.

Hermione bit her lip and held it up for him to take, her eyes searching his face. He didn’t meet her gaze. His face looked grey, and his breath was coming in shallow pants.

“I think you should have this.” There was no real reason for her to say that, but for some reason it felt right.

Malfoy reached out, his long fingers pinching the paper. She let him take it, and he wrapped his hand around it, crinkling the edges further.

When she had fully released the pamphlet he looked up suddenly and met her eyes. She wondered if she looked pitying. She hoped not, but she also wasn’t sure how not to look it.

There must have been something on her face he didn’t like because he scowled at her and let the pamphlet flutter to the floor.

“Are you—I mean. Do you need help?” Hermione asked, peering up at him, her head tilted slightly.

The air around her felt thick and heavy and it felt hard for her to breath.

He shook his head in quick movements, his blond hair going in his face. His lips were pressed so tightly together that they were white.

She recognised what was in his eyes now.

It was fear.

Turning on his heel, he fled the library at a near run, leaving his books and his bag behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have my life back! In celebration I got champagne drunk and had food delivered from the Cheesecake Factory.
> 
> The poem from the title of the chapter:
> 
> [We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/28112/we-real-cool)
> 
> As always, my ask box [on tumblr](misselylux.tumblr.com) is always open.
> 
> Comments are my love language.


	5. The Cassandra Complex: Living with Disbelief: A Modern Perspective on Hysteria by Laurie L. Schapira

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everlasting love to [weestarmeggie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/weestarmeggie/pseuds/weestarmeggie) and [NuclearNik](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NuclearNik) for alpha-beta-ing.

Sitting at the Gryffindor table during the Halloween Feast, Hermione was distracted, not able to appreciate the festivities or the air of anticipation thick in the air.

She had decided that her experience with Bibliomancy had obviously just been a fluke. Nothing had come up in the last two months; there was nothing from her summer reading, and nothing even from the most recent books she had come across.

She was still thinking about her interaction with Draco earlier that week. Was he being abused? Who was abusing him? She tried to recall what she knew about his family. He was an only child from a wealthy and well-to do-family. She had met or at least seen both of his parents, and neither of them had been outwardly abusive. But that had been in public. She had never seen any bruises on him, but then again, he had almost always been in long sleeves and trousers and not around his parents. Maybe he was being abused by a classmate? But that seemed unlikely, given how he strutted around like the Prince of Slytherin. 

But then Dumbledore’s voice echoed across the Great Hall.

“Harry Potter.”

Harry looked scared, and she felt it. She encouraged him to stand, but his blank shocked look matched what she felt.

Hermione’s heart sank.

In the silence that followed his exit Hermione’s mind was already racing. 

The Triwizard—Quadwizard now?—Tournament was dangerous. Competitors had been killed in the past. And with Harry’s luck, his life would be in danger. 

Again.

The breakout of furious whispering distracted her, pressing in on her from all sides. She needed to get out of here.

She looked at Ron, ready to ask him to come with her to the Library so she could check out the books she had come across earlier in the term.

But the look on his face stopped her dead. He was red, scowling, and visibly furious. She reached a tentative hand out to touch the sleeve of his robe.

“I can’t believe him.” Ron’s voice was low and hot with anger. “I can’t believe he didn’t tell me that he was putting in his name, didn’t let me do it with him.”

“I don’t think—” she started, purposefully keeping her voice soft and soothing, trying not to draw attention to them, but Ron cut her off.

“Of course, he did. He does the same thing he always does. Has to be the centre of attention, has to be all about him all of the time. Bloody show off.”

Ron stood abruptly and stormed out of the Great Hall.

The volume rose again in wake of his dramatic exit. Hermione bit her cheek, legs tense, uncertain if she should follow.

Slowly she relaxed back into her seat.  _ Better to let him blow off steam. _ She didn’t want to be on the sharp end of his tongue. She remembered how cruel he could be, as he'd been at the beginning of First Year, and then again last year.

Once people began trickling back to their dorms, she made her way to the library.

It took her less than a full minute to realise that it was going to fall on her to help Harry. Ron was obviously in a snit; who knew how long that might last? Last year he and Harry had iced her out for months. There was no one else who would step up and help Harry, so it would have to be her.

The meal let out and Hermione rushed from the Great Hall.

Her first stop in the library was to check out all the books she had seen about the Triwizard Tournament. Then she stalled, uncertain of what else Harry might need.

Her fingers drummed against the binding of one of the books. Bibliomancy hadn’t been reliable. She hadn’t been able to interpret what  _ had _ been reliable.

But the future had become much more dangerous over dinner, and Hermione realised she would need every leg up she could get.

So she closed her eyes like the book on Bibliomancy had instructed and did her best to clear her mind.

_ What is Harry going to face? How can I help him? How can I keep him alive? _

She repeated the questions again and again. 

And then her eyes popped open. 

She still didn’t feel a pull, but she did wander the stacks. She knew she didn’t have long, so she picked up her pace. She made a sharp turn around a blind corner and almost ran into Draco Malfoy.

He had been reaching to grab a book on one of the higher shelves, and his eyebrows were raised in surprise. Maybe he had thought that after such a dramatic dinner everyone would have gone back to their common rooms to gossip about it.

“Granger,” he said, his eyes flicking up and down the length of her body.

“Malfoy.” She nodded stiffly at him and tried to decide if she wanted to ask him to let her pass or just turn around.

She decided to turn around.

“Here to try to keep Potter’s head attached to his neck?” Malfoy’s disdain was audible in his voice.

Hermione rolled her eyes but refused to turn around to look at him. “You’re just jealous. Luckily you’re used to wearing green.”

Walking away, she made sure that her Mary Janes clicked loudly with every step. 

She was determined to get back to her task and not let Malfoy distract her. She made a big circle around the perimeter of the library, ending up in the small Muggle Studies section. There was a book bound with bright red leather that caught her eye:  _ Magical Creatures in Muggle Literature _ .

_ Why not? _ she thought as she reached out to grab the thick volume. It was heavier than she expected, and she almost dropped it. She heaved it up and carried it carefully back to the table where she had set up her study spot, setting it down with an audible  _ thump _ .

She began to flip idly through the book. At the very least, maybe she would be able to convince Professor Burbage to let her do a project on it.

The first story highlighted was the myth of St. George slaying the dragon. The book touched on the origins of the myth, how Muggles interpreted it, and how they saw the dragon as a metaphor. Hermione flipped to the next chapter. It was about ghosts used as plot devices and talked about Charles Dickens’  _ A Christmas Carol. _

It was an extraordinarily interesting book and before she realised it, an hour had passed and it was almost curfew. Hermione decided to check it out simply out of an interest in the topic.

She took her time returning to Gryffindor's Common Room, trying to decide how to approach Harry. Maybe she should wait. Surely he would be overwhelmed by having just been selected. But on the other hand, she couldn’t wait too long because he needed to prepare.

By the time the Fat Lady swung open, she decided to wait, to give Harry some breathing room, and maybe give herself more time to try to discern what the books she had pulled over the summer might mean.

So she let Harry know that she believed and supported him, and did her best to bide her time while she waited.

It was hard. 

She wanted to rush to him and try to help. He was a child compared to the other competitors. They had years of education on him, and they were all at least a head taller than Harry’s scrawny frame, even Fleur. But the pinched look around Harry’s eyes that he got whenever someone brought up the tournament made her hesitate to say anything.

* * *

It wasn’t until a week after Halloween that she decided it was safe to bring up the tournament.

She brought him breakfast outside again; she'd made him bacon butties from the food laid out by the elves. It left a sour taste in her mouth to think about their enslavement, but she had put it on the back burner in favor of focusing on helping Harry prepare for the Tournament. In addition, she was focusing a good deal of her free time on trying to discern what the books she had pulled over the summer meant in relation to the Triwizard Tournament.

She sat next to Harry on a boulder at the edge of the Black Lake. He ate his food in silence, staring out at the still water. The only sound was of birds in the distant forest.

“Do you think I’m going to die?” Harry’s voice was quiet, but it sent a pang of fear and pain through her body.

Her answer was immediate and as certain as she could make it. “No, no I don’t think that.”

Her heart twisted in her chest violently, and her hand went to rub her sternum.

“I mean, I must have some of the worst luck on the planet. So it wouldn’t be much of a surprise at this point.”

Hermione scowled into the middle distance.

“Remember—“ She hesitated, second-guessing her approach before deciding to press on, “—remember in August when I told you about Bibliomancy?”

Harry’s brow furrowed as he took a bite of his buttie. He shook his head slowly as he continued to eat.

Hermione licked her lips, nervous for a reason she couldn’t really discern.

“It was that Divination technique that involved using books?”

Harry shook his head again and then paused. “Wait, the one we decided was nonsense?”

Hermione worried the inside of her cheek. “Well, I know Ron didn’t think it was much, but I’ve been giving it some more thought, and there might be something there.”

He made an unconvinced noise in the back of his throat.

“I dunno, Hermione. You always said Trelawney was batty, and now you’re interested in it?”

“Well, it’s just that there were some things that I found in books that ended up being relevant. I pulled a book on nightmares and you’d been having them.”

“Couldn’t that just be one of those things that since you found something you started seeing it everywhere?” The sceptical tone in his voice was probably fair, but it still hurt.

“There were a lot of coincidences.” Perhaps her persuasion skills needed work, because her words just came out sounding whiny.

“I don’t know if I want to bet my life on coincidences, even if there are a number of them. Plus, you only mention that you figure out what they mean after something happens, so would it even be of any use?”

He was right. It was a point she herself had thought of.

“I mean, I don’t know, maybe if there was a more reliable method of interpretation?”

“I don’t think so, Hermione. I know you want to help, but I think I’m going to need something more than guesswork and some nice books.”

Hermione blinked hard once, then again, trying to remind herself that a rejection of an idea was not a rejection of her personally, but it was hard to separate the two.

“Sure, I mean—sure.”

Harry changed the topic, complaining again about Ron and how much the disbelief of his first and best friend hurt. Hermione bit her tongue and made sympathetic noises, eventually suggesting that he send Sirius a letter about what had happened.

Walking back to the castle, she swallowed the hurt. Rationally, she was aware that Harry had a point. But it still hurt that she had been willing to believe Harry when no one else had, and he seemed unable to return the favour.

  
  


* * *

  
  


Hermione was still stewing a week later.

Harry had made it clear that he didn’t think that Bibliomancy would help him survive, and in reality, she couldn’t come up with a persuasive argument to the contrary. After all, if she was unable to rely on her findings, then were they actually of any use?

It was clear that Harry was preoccupied by how the rest of the school was treating him. He told her one evening while they found themselves alone, sitting in front of the fire in Gryffindor’s Common Room.

She was hunched over her Potions book, rereading a passage on Polyjuice potion that she felt like she had read a hundred times, but really her mind was on Draco Malfoy. As much as she didn’t want to feel bad for him, the look he had given her when she had offered him the domestic violence pamphlet haunted her. His face had looked empty and much more scared than she had ever seen before.

“Everyone hates me.” Harry poked at the fire with an iron, making it pop loudly.

“They do not.” Hermione didn’t look up from her book. “For one, I don’t hate you. Neither does Neville, or the twins, or Snuffles, or—”

“Everyone hates me,” he insisted, poking more aggressively at the fire.

She let out an exasperated sigh; it was clear Harry wasn’t in a mood to actually listen to her.

“And I could deal with everyone thinking I’m a liar and a cheat, if only I had Ron on my side.”

Hermione said nothing, watching the back of Harry’s head as he continued to stare moodily into the fire.

“I’m so lonely."

Hermione had looked away so as not to let him see the hurt on her face, and instead she nodded.

She knew the feeling.

* * *

After that, she threw herself even more into trying to figure out how she could help, how she could prove Harry wrong.

How she could prove her value.

Was the point not to be able to predict events in enough time to prepare for them?

But she had this feeling she couldn’t quite explain.

And she couldn’t let it go.

It was on a Thursday afternoon as she was sitting in the library, reviewing the Potions essay that was due in a month when she had a realisation.

The issue was not the book or passages she found. The issue was interpretation. Her interpretation had been rigid; she had been looking for clear and definite answers. Especially during her initial experiments when she had been asking straightforward questions that she hadn't actually cared about. 

But she had found answers for things that had mattered deeply to her or those around her. She hadn’t cared about what her father would make for dinner, but Mr. Weasley and Percy had obviously both been concerned about that woman who had gone missing in Albania. She had cared about Harry’s nightmares. She hadn’t cared about predicting the winner of the World Cup, but the twins had staked their life savings on it.

If it was the interpretation that was flawed, then that was something she could work on, or at least something she could learn to be better at.

She considered first trying to find a book. After all, they seemed to be of the most help, she remembered what the book on Bibliomancy had said, that interpretation was subjective. And the Divination books she had found last year had little on interpretation that went beyond “Trust your intuition,” which was not helpful in this context.

After all, if her intuition was inflexible, rigid, and narrow, then it could not be trusted.

Maybe those books on the history of Divination were right, maybe she needed a person to teach it to her. Which was unfortunate, given that the only person who she could think of that might have experience with it was someone she had hoped never to talk to again.

It took her a full five minutes of contemplation to come to a decision.

The next morning before class she stood in front of Professor Trelawney’s office, hand poised to knock. She was already tense, her teeth gritted and shoulders square.

Her knock was probably overly-aggressive, but she couldn’t help it.

“Come in,” an airy voice floated out, muffled by the closed door.

Hermione pulled the door open to find Professor Trelawney seated behind her small round desk, her overly large glasses perched low on her nose.

The older woman looked up from the charts she was grading with genuine surprise on her face, but immediately schooled her features into the serene look she normally spotted. 

“Miss Granger, my tea leaves this morning told me I would have a visitor but not one so unexpected.” Her former professor’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, and Hermione tried not to be offended by the distrust there.

“Professor Trelawney, do you have a moment?” Hermione took a step into the room. Her nose twitched at the strong scent of incense, and she resisted the urge to sneeze.

Professor Trelawney gestured with the hand that held her quill, still dripping with red ink, towards one of the poufs in front of her desk.

Hermione did her best to perch on the edge, but the pouf did not lend itself to sitting daintily, and she sank back against her will.

“Professor, I don’t know if you remember, but at the end of last year I asked you about Bibliomancy.” Hermione did her best to make her voice as non-confrontational as possible, but the way Professor Trelawney’s mouth tightened at the corners told her she wasn’t successful.

“I recall, Miss Granger.”

“Well, I was wondering about interpreting results. Not just from Bibliomancy, but even from other forms of Divination. The books—“ She broke off, and Professor Trelawney rolled her eyes, but Hermione chose to press on regardless. She had already started, might as well finish at this point—the damage was done. “The books are unclear on the interpretation of omens, signals, or results, aside from advice to follow your intuition.”

Professor Trelawney placed her quill on the desk and turned to fully face Hermione.

“Well, Miss Granger,  _ if you recall _ , I told you last year that Bibliomancy is not a reliable method. As for  _ interpreting _ , as you put it, there is no advice I can give you. Either you have the sight, have the intuition, or you don’t. You simply know the answer. It’s not a special feeling you get; there is no wand waving or magic words involved. It requires a degree of creative thinking that, if you don’t mind me saying, seems to be exceedingly difficult for you.”

Hermione did mind, very much, but she bit her tongue, if only because she didn’t want Professor Trelawney to take points and did her best to swallow her annoyance.

“So there’s nothing that you can tell me about—“

“No, Miss Granger. I feel like I’ve repeated this point to you multiple times. The Sight is not a gift bestowed on most, and you in particular lack the sort of aura that is necessary.”

Hermione chewed on the inside of her cheek and gave a sharp nod, standing quickly. It was a haphazard move, hindered by the soft pouf, which made her struggle a little to stand.

“I understand, Professor Trelawney. Thank you for your insight.”

Hermione hurried out of the classroom, seething.

She had known that it would be a long shot, but to be so disrespected, by a professor no less!

There was one bright spot though. Even though Professor Trelawney had not meant to be helpful, she had been. 

It struck a chord, the professor's remarks about how there was no  _ special feeling _ . Mr. Weasley had said something nearly identical about how to detect portkeys: it was nothing special, it was just something that you knew.

She needed to work on recognising that feeling, that moment of hesitation.

Perhaps Hermione did need to practice some creative thinking as well. After all, the links between the books she had pulled and what happened in reality was often attenuated.

Maybe she needed to stop trying to find the exact words or answers and try to see more abstract patterns instead.

It was a struggle to try to think creatively, especially as Hermione had no real idea what that meant.

She decided to focus on her new project rather than on Harry.

It was hard, and she was doing her best to be there for him, but his attitude had not improved, in fact he had become even more moody and quicker to anger than usual.

On Friday almost two weeks after Harry’s name had been pulled from the Goblet, she and Harry made their way down to the dungeons for double Potions. Harry was already in a bad mood, and she was distracted, thinking about the book on magical creatures in Muggle literature.

Harry stopped short in front of the Potions classroom, and Hermione was forced to peer around him to see what had caused the abrupt halt. The Slytherins were already loitering by the door, clearly waiting for something. Each and every one of them was wearing a badge.

“ _ Support Cedric Diggory, The Real Hogwarts Champion _ ” glowed on every badge in red letters that lit up the gloom of the underground hallway. 

Hermione winced, and Malfoy smirked, a cruel tilt to his lips. 

“Like them, Potter?” Malfoy called out. “And this isn’t all they do. Look!” 

He pressed the badge into his chest with a finger, and the words on the pin were replaced by bold green letters that read “Potter Stinks.” 

The Slytherins howled with laughter and they all followed suit, pressing their badges as well until there was a green glow to the hallway.

Harry flushed red, and Hermione stiffened beside him, trying to decide if she needed to hold him back physically.

Hermione focused on Pansy, avoiding Malfoy’s gaze which had slid to her. 

“Oh, very funny,” she said, her voice thick with sarcasm. “Really witty.”

Malfoy took a step towards her, holding out a badge.

“Want one, Granger? I’ve got loads.” He paused, his lip curling with disgust. There was something angry and cruel in his expression, and it made Hermione nervous. It was very different from the look he had given her in the library. “But don’t touch my hand now, I’ve just washed it you see, don’t want a Mudblood sliming it up.”

Something in her chest twisted. She tried to tell herself that she was not that offended; this wasn’t out of line for him. But she had thought that maybe after what had happened in the library he would be a touch less cruel.

She felt her mouth turn down despite her attempt to keep any look of hurt off her face. It would do nothing to have him see that his strike against her had been successful.

Harry used Malfoy’s insults as an excuse though, pulling out his wand. Everyone scrambled out of the way, going to the wall or down the hall.

“Harry,” Hermione said, trying to get his attention, to calm him down. Snape was due any minute and fighting in the hall wouldn’t do anyone any good.

“Go on then, Potter,” Malfoy said quietly, but he wasn’t entirely focused on Harry, instead his cold, grey eyes were shifting between her and Harry. 

“Moody isn't here to look after you now. Do it, if you’ve got the guts,” Malfoy goaded. 

Harry opened his mouth to shout a spell, and Hermione watched as if in slow motion as Draco’s wand tilted ever so slightly so that he was not aiming at Harry, but at her.

“Furnunculus,” Harry yelled, a gold light jumping out of his wand, but the beam was crooked and missed Draco, hitting Goyle.

“Densaugeo,” Malfoy said at the same time. He didn’t miss, though, and Hermione felt the spell hit her face, making her stagger back, her spine crashing painfully against the stone wall of the corridor.

Her mouth started to ache in a way that reminded her of how it had felt after her parents had pulled her wisdom teeth. It soon eclipsed the sharp scrapes the rough stone had made on her back.

It hurt badly, and the pain made her confused. Her hand flew to her mouth and with a flash she realized what was happening. Her front teeth, already too large, were growing. They brushed past her lip and she whimpered in part pain, part panic.

They were growing fast, her fingers tracing over the elongating teeth frantically. Hermione whined high in her throat and in a panic clutched at her mouth, frozen in indecision.

There was someone yelling, and Ron rushed over, pulling her hand away from her face violently. She resisted; she didn’t want this, didn’t want them to see, didn't want anyone to see, but he was bigger and stronger than her and easily overpowered her.

Her teeth were growing past her bottom lip towards her chin, and when Ron looked at her mouth, there was horror written all over his face.

She let out a terrified cry and scrambled to cover her face again. Over Ron’s shoulder she caught sight of Professor Snape approaching, his robes billowing dramatically around him.

“And what is all this noise about?” Professor Snape’s silky tones interrupted the too-fast whirring of her brain. A Professor would be able to help her, would at least be able to get her to Madam Pomfrey. 

The Slytherins spoke over each other, eager to exonerate Malfoy and get Harry in trouble.

Snape pointed at Malfoy with a sharp gesture. “Explain.”

“Potter attacked me, sir.” Malfoy said. But Malfoy wasn’t looking at Professor Snape, he was still looking at her, his gaze flicking between her mouth and her eyes. She wished he would stop. She felt the hot pressure behind her eyes that foretold tears. She didn’t want him to have the pleasure of seeing that he had made her cry.

“We attacked each other at the same time”, Harry protested loudly, Professor Snape glared at him and gestured for Malfoy to continue.

“And he hit Goyle, look.” Malfoy pointed back to Goyle, who Hermione now saw had gotten terrible boils on his nose.

“Hospital Wing, Goyle,” said Professor Snape. Goyle hustled down the hall, his hand covering his nose, closely followed by Crabbe.

Hermione said nothing, it was all she could do right now not to start crying, and she knew that if she opened her mouth she would start sobbing. 

Pansy Parkinson and her whole group of Slytherin girls were doubled over in silent laughter behind Professor Snape’s back. It was painful but what bothered her more was Malfoy’s pleased smirk. Hadn’t she tried to help him? Why was he taking such joy in causing her pain?

Ron yanked her hand down away from her mouth again, pulling her attention away from Malfoy.

“Malfoy got Hermione, look!” said Ron, gesturing wildly.

She scrambled to cover them, not that it did much good at this point.

Professor Snape regarded her, a smirk crossing his face.

“I see no difference,” he said after a moment.

A distressed, high pitched noise escaped Hermione’s mouth, and she felt the dam break, hot tears cascading down her cheeks. She turned on her heel with a gulping sob and ran.

The image that stuck with her as she tore down the hallways was the cold, pleased look in Malfoy’s eyes as she cried

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are my love language.
> 
> (Also, when I said Slow Burn, I absolutely meant sssslllllooooooooowwwww bbbbbbbuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrnnnnnnn)


	6. A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The biggest of thanks and love to my alpha/betas [NuclearNik](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NuclearNik/pseuds/NuclearNik) and 

Hermione had taken to poring over the book on Muggle interpretations of magical creatures during her breaks.

It was tough to find time to work on Bibliomancy between her school work, trying to comfort both Harry and Ron, and also doing a small amount of research to keep up her guise of finding out more about house-elves as an excuse for her frequent absences. 

Of course, she cared about house-elves, however, it was easier to tell Harry and Ron that she was doing S.P.E.W. related research than it was to tell them that she was still on about that Bibliomancy thing both of them thought was nonsense.

Thinking creatively and making jumps she didn’t see as logical was proving difficult. Trying to piece together what she knew about the Triwizard Tournament with what she intuited would come to pass was not something that came naturally.

She thought that the first task would be a magical creature of some sort; that was what it had been in past tournaments. She had narrowed it down to the ones in the book, but that was still five very different creatures. There were some that she was more worried about than others, namely dragons. The unicorns didn’t worry her, and the house-elves also didn’t seem particularly dangerous; though Dobby’s behavior during their second year did indicate otherwise. Ghosts seemed equally as non-threatening, as far as she knew. Unless it was a poltergeist like Peeves, ghosts couldn’t interact with physical objects.

There was a story about ogres that was also of concern, but that was something Harry had dealt with before.

So Hermione was left to focus on dragons.

That felt right in a way she couldn’t quite explain; in a way when she tossed and turned late at night, unable to sleep, she was afraid she was imagining the whole thing.

She sent a letter to Charlie Weasley at his dragon preserve in Romania under the guise of a project for Care of Magical Creatures. She had a brief conversation with Hagrid that devolved into him weeping over “Poor baby Norbert.” She checked out all the books she could find on dragons from the library. Disappointingly, most weren’t a huge help, focusing more on the care of dragons than how it was possible to defeat them. She did learn about how the ancient magic that imbued dragonhide made it near impossible to penetrate with a spell, but that was more alarming than helpful. She also read about how to trim their nails.

It was frustrating. What made it more frustrating was that she had two constant shadows. For some reason at every turn, especially when she was in the library, she seemed to almost always trip over Draco.

Thinking about Draco Malfoy also took up more time than she would like it to. She tried hard to resist, but the contrast between the haunted gaunt look he had given her in the library with that cruel smile—so sharp it cut into her—that he had when he cursed her had left her shaken. 

It didn’t help that he had taken to quoting Rita Skeeter’s article about Harry in a loud, dramatic voice whenever he came across her in public. But for some reason when he would come across her alone in the library, all he would do was watch.

He would never say anything to her, but the blank expression on his face when he regarded her was disconcerting. His eyes were intense, the grey irises glinting at her from the gloom of autumn afternoons in the library.

The other irritant was Viktor Krum. Krum himself was fine, she supposed. He would sometimes strike up conversations with her, but they were more often than not stilted and awkward. His grasp of English was weak, and she knew no Bulgarian at all, but he always had a smile to offer her and knew when to leave so that his followers didn’t bother her.

* * *

The first task was approaching at what seemed like an increasingly accelerated pace. She tried to give Harry some curses and spells she thought might be useful, but he was too mired in his own discontent to pay her much attention. 

She wanted to shake him. She was trying to keep him alive, and all he was doing was pouting that no one believed him. Rita Skeeter had made sure that Hermione was dragged into it too.

The article after Harry’s wand was weighed made her more frustrated than anything.

Though yes, self-conscious was a close second. She knew she wasn’t “stunningly pretty.” She didn't need Pansy’s commentary about it. 

Instead, she had told Harry to ignore it channeling her younger self when her primary school peers had been much more cruel and much more clever than Pansy Parkinson could ever hope to be.

She had tried to talk sense into Harry.

“You miss him!” She crossed her arms tightly in front of her and did her best to mimic Mrs. Weasley’s no nonsense attitude. “And I know he misses you!”

“Miss him!” Harry had scoffed. “I don’t miss him.”

Hermione rolled her eyes as dramatically as possible. Even if Harry hadn’t admitted previously how much Ron’s support would have meant, it was glaringly obvious from his behaviour. Harry had taken to moping all over the castle, forcing Hermione to remind him not to blow up at others, reminding him to do his homework, and prodding him to come to meals.

It was a full time job in and of itself.

And she had gotten hurt inadvertently in the process. One afternoon, a few weeks before the first task, she had been walking with Ron from the Herbology greenhouses back to the castle. Harry had been behind her, talking with Neville.

“How are you holding up?” Neville asked Harry. Ron had been caught up talking with Seamus, so he didn’t notice the conversation behind them.

“Fine,” Hermione could hear the pout in Harry’s voice. He obviously wasn’t doing fine.

“I know it must be tough,” Neville had said, sympathy clear in his tone.

“Yeah—” Harry broke off with a deep sigh. “Hermione’s been great, but she’s just no Ron. She just spends so much time in the library. It’s just a lot less fun.”

Hermione kept walking, speeding up slightly so she could be out of earshot. She was annoyed that Harry’s comments had caused her pain. After all, he wasn’t saying anything behind her back that he hadn’t said to her face.

Harry was going through a tough time, she reminded herself, swallowing hard to try to ease the lump that had formed in her throat.  _ His life was literally in danger. _ And she knew she wasn’t fun. She had never been fun. No one had ever—not once—called her fun.

But even with all her justifications, Harry’s comment still hurt.

It hadn’t helped all that much, and she found it hard to focus on helping Harry learn summoning charms. She pretended that it was the giggling girls following around Krum who were responsible for her angst as she slammed closed her textbook with a glare.

* * *

Hermione felt foolish accompanying Harry to Hogsmeade while he was in his invisibility cloak. It was embarrassing to look like she was all alone talking to herself, but she did her best to put it aside. It was the Saturday before the first task, and she could feel his panic like it was a physical weight on her, despite Harry’s attempts to hide it.

By the time they settled at a table in the Three Broomsticks, she was sick of indulging Harry’s angst.

“I look like such an idiot sitting here on my own,” she muttered. She pulled out her S.P.E.W. notebook, where she had tucked in her notes about Bibliomancy, and pretended to be interested in what was inside it.

She let him drink his Butterbeer in silence as she tried to think of what spells she could get Harry to practise. His lack of ability to even do a simple summoning charm boded ill for anything else she had been trying to teach him.

Being pulling in so many directions was giving her flashbacks to how overworked and underappreciated she had been last year. Sometimes there were moments she thought that Ron and Harry both still held a grudge about her reporting the Firebolt, about the thing with Scabbers, and about her keeping the Time-Turner secret from them. And now that they weren’t talking to each other, neither of them seemed to be satisfied with her friendship, yet again.

Hagrid’s loud voice startled Hermione out of her spiral of thoughts.

“Hey there, Hermione!” Hagrid said, beaming down at her.

“Oh, hello Hagrid.” Hermione looked curiously at Professor Moody who was making his way around the table, ostensibly to take a look at her notebook. She was glad she had the forethought to charm it so that only she could see its real contents, but the way Professor Moody’s magical eye was flicking quickly between her book and Harry was making her both nauseous and nervous.

“Nice cloak, Potter,” Moody drawled in Harry’s direction. His grin was scary, sharp and misshapen. It reminded Hermione of a shark poised to strike. Appropriate for one of the most feared Aurors ever.

“Can your eye—I mean—can you?” Harry’s stuttering voice emerged from the empty space she assumed he occupied.

“Yeah, it can see through invisibility cloaks, and it’s come in useful too,” Moody growled, low enough so that only the four of them could hear.

Hagrid shuffled closer to still invisible Harry and leaned down and whispered something to Harry that Hermione didn’t catch.

She worried the inside of her cheek and glanced around the pub. No one seemed to be paying attention to their table.

Hagrid straightened and gave her an oversized grin.

“Nice to see you, Hermione,” Hagrid said, his voice too loud for it to sound natural. He winked at her and turned towards the door.

Professor Moody gave her a deep nod, his eye on her notebook still.

Hermione watched them both walk out the door of the Three Broomsticks before Harry broke the silence.

“Why does Hagrid want me to meet him at midnight?”

Hermione’s brow furrowed, and she ran a finger around the mouth of her mug of Butterbeer.

“Does he? I wonder what he’s up to. I don’t know whether you should go, Harry. It might make you late for Sirius,” she reminded him, leaning in so she could whisper without being overheard.

“Maybe send Hedwig down to Hagrid’s to tell him you can’t go?” she suggested. It seemed like a bad idea to cut the meeting with Sirius so close. But Harry wouldn’t hear of it, dismissing the idea.

Harry was like a horse with a bit between his teeth when he got an idea.

Despite her better judgment, she helped him sneak out that evening, hoping he would return in time.

* * *

He did make it, but just barely.

Harry’s breathless admission on Sunday morning that the first task was dragons almost made her jump for joy.

She had been right. 

Bibliomancy had been right. 

But she bit her tongue, instead continuing to walk around the lake with Harry twice to try to calm him down. It didn’t help. Harry was more frantic than ever before, and she didn’t think that crowing about how she had been right and he had been wrong would go over well, but she still tucked it away for a later date.

Instead she focused on the fact that Harry would have to face a dragon on Tuesday. How was Harry supposed to go up against a dragon? Her weeks-long effort to find out any information on how to defeat a dragon had gotten her nowhere. The books were unhelpful, Charlie never returned the letter she wrote, and Hagrid only talked about Norbert. 

But still, Hermione dragged him to the library. Harry pulled down every book he could find in the library about dragons. She bit her tongue, not telling him that she had already scoured those books. A second pair of eyes couldn’t hurt, could it?

She focused instead on books of spells that might be powerful enough to penetrate a dragon’s hide. The problem was that she didn’t think that Harry would be powerful enough to learn any of those in the mere days they had left.

“Sirius said a simple spell,” Hermione sighed, and Harry returned with a book of simple spells.

“Well, there are switching spells. But, what’s the point of switching it? Unless you swapped its fangs for wine gums or something that would make it less dangerous. The trouble is, like that book said, not much is going to get through a dragon’s hide. I’d say transfigure it, but something that big, you really haven’t got a hope. I doubt even Professor McGonagall…Unless you’re supposed to put the spell on yourself. Maybe to give yourself extra powers, but they’re not simple spells; we haven’t done any of them in class. I only know about them because I’ve been doing O.W.L. practice papers—”

Harry interrupted her sharply, a hand lacing through his hopelessly messy hair. “Hermione, would you shut up for a bit please? I’m trying to concentrate.”

Her mouth shut with an audible click, and she returned her attention to the book in front of her, determined to find something, anything.

Her concentration was interrupted shortly after.

It was the weight of a gaze on her back that caught her attention. She looked up to see a familiar flash of ice-blond hair.

Draco Malfoy was loitering in a nearby carroll, presumably doing work, but the way his gaze kept returning to her told her otherwise.

She looked away pointedly, trying to do anything but think about Malfoy. 

That’s when she caught sight of Viktor Krum’s slightly bowlegged gait as he walked into the library.

She let out an aggravated huff. “Oh no, he’s back again. Why can’t he read on his stupid ship?” 

Krum slouched in and cast a surly look towards the two of them. The Quidditch star’s frequent presence in the library was deeply irritating. Not because she felt any sort of way about Krum, but more because he was constantly shadowed by a group of girls who had no idea what proper library decorum was.

“Come on, Harry, we’ll go back to the common room. His fan club will be here in a moment, twittering away.”

The gang of girls tiptoed past them at that very moment, and Hermione made an irritated noise in the back of her throat, walking out of the library and holding herself so tightly that her muscles ached.

* * *

It wasn’t until later in the day when Harry had come rushing into Herbology—three minutes late but with at least the outline of a plan—that Hermione relaxed even minutely.

“Hermione,” Harry whispered, his eyes bright. He looked hopeful for the first time in weeks. “Hermione—I need you to help me.”

“What d’you think I’ve been trying to do, Harry?” she whispered back, her eyes round with anxiety over the top of the quivering Flutterby Bush she was pruning.

“Hermione, I need to learn how to do a Summoning Charm properly by tomorrow afternoon.”

The urge to shake Harry was really quite overwhelming at times.

But she pushed it down and could breathe just a smidge easier now that he had some sort of plan. 

So she taught him. It was hours of work, and though the frustration with him and this situation felt like acid eating her from the inside out, she kept on it. Because she had to keep one of her only friends alive, no matter how much of a jerk he had been in the past few weeks.

Harry had wanted to keep going and skip Divination, but she needed an hour in the library. She wanted to try once more to divine if there was something else she should be prepared for in terms of the First Task. She told Harry it was because she wanted to go to Arithmancy, and he had been exasperated. She ended up not having any new books or leads, so it felt like a waste of time by the end. 

He did get the hang of the spell though, and by the end of the night he was able to summon heavy objects from across the common room.

They only stopped close to three in the morning.

“ _ Accio dictionary _ !” Harry said, raising his wand. 

The dictionary flew from Hermione’s hands, and Harry caught it in midair.

“Harry, I really think you’ve got it!” She tried to sound enthusiastic and keep her anxiety out of her voice. From the pleased smile on Harry’s face, she succeeded.

But then he frowned and ran a hand across the back of his neck.

“Just as long as it works tomorrow,” Harry said. “The Firebolt’s going to be much farther away than the stuff in here; it’s going to be in the castle, and I’m going to be out there on the grounds…”

“That doesn’t matter,” she said firmly. “Just as long as you’re concentrating really, really hard on it, it’ll come. Harry, we’d better get some sleep… you’re going to need it.”

Crawling into bed, she didn’t sleep a wink.

  
  


* * *

  
  


“You look like hell Hermione,” Ron remarked the next morning, peering at her over his overflowing plate.

Professor McGonagall had come to collect Harry just moments before.

“Thank you, Ronald. So kind of you to say.” She was sure her disdain had come across in her sharp tone, and Ron rolled his eyes in response.

“Just saying. Merlin. No need to throw a fit over it.”

“I am not throwing a fit. My friend—your best friend—is about to be put in deadly peril. Harry might die today, and you haven’t even talked to him in weeks!”

“He needs to apologise to me first.”

“Ron, stop being so dense. Harry hates the attention and he has nothing to apologise for.”

Ron scoffed and proceeded to ignore her, concentrating instead on his breakfast.

Hermione ate half a piece of toast and two cups of tea that she could only hold with two hands because both were shaking so badly.

“I’m going to make my way down there now. If you have any decency you’ll meet me down there and both of you will finish this nonsense feud.”

She didn’t wait for Ron’s response, instead rushing down to the stands where the task was set to take place.

Harry had succeeded in learning the summoning spell, but she wasn’t sure if that alone would be enough to get past a dragon. Harry was an excellent flyer, but was he really that good?

Of course, Harry went last. Hermione felt like she held her breath through Viktor, Fleur, and Cedric’s turns. When Harry’s name was called her lungs were burning and her heart was in her chest. Ludo Bagman’s colorful commentary made everything ten times worse.

Her hands were curled around her seat in the stands in a rictus grip. She didn’t think she was going to be able to let go after this was done, and her head was light.

“Man, this is rough,” Ron said. She shot a glare at him, but was relieved to see that at least he looked a little pale. Perhaps now he would realise the danger Harry was really in.

She could only manage a jerky nod, her mouth held tightly closed as she was almost positive that if she tried to talk she would vomit.

“Harry Potter,” Ludo Bagman called over the roar of the crowd.

Hermione did her best to applaud, but she couldn’t stand, and her hands went to her face, gripping it in terror.

It was almost as bad as she feared. Watching Harry wait for the broom to come to him was torture. Her memories were filled with all the times he had failed to summon a pillow from a few inches away.

When the broom flew into his hand, her sigh of relief was loud and her shoulders released. She shut her eyes tight as he dipped and weaved to avoid the dragon, but just hearing the reactions of the crowd to his manoeuvres was worse than just watching, so she forced her eyes open again.

Her fingernails dug into her face so hard she was sure they would leave marks.

The dragon was too close for comfort most of the time, but when Harry finally got the golden egg Hermione jumped to her feet, screaming as loud as she ever had. Harry had survived; he was alive. The dragon hadn’t killed him.

Hermione ran to the tent after the dragon was subdued, her feet carrying her faster than she remembered running ever before. She didn’t notice Ron at her heels until she hurled herself through the mouth of the tent, panting.

“Harry, you were brilliant!” Her voice was high and breathless. Her smile made the furrows left by her nails in her face burn as they stretched. “You were amazing! You really were!”

Harry wasn’t looking at her though, he was looking at Ron who hadn’t regained any color to his face.

“Harry,” Ron said, tone serious, “whoever put your name in that goblet... I—I reckon they’re trying to do you in!”

“Caught on, have you?” Harry said coldly. “Took you long enough.”

Hermione’s eyes ping-ponged between the two of them. Ron’s mouth had dropped open to say something else, but Harry interrupted him with an abrupt shake of his head.

“It’s okay,” Harry said. “Forget it.”

“No,” said Ron. “I shouldn’t’ve—”

“Forget it.” Harry leaned into the Ts of each word, over-enunciating them.

The tears that had been threatening since she had found out about the dragons burst out, and all of a sudden she was sobbing loudly.

Both boys turned to her, confusion and alarm clear on their faces.

“There’s nothing to cry about.” Harry’s bewildered expression made her cry even harder.

“You two are so  _ stupid _ !” she shouted, stamping her foot on the ground. Relief mixed with adrenaline, and she grabbed both boys around the neck in a fierce hug. She turned, tears still streaming down her cheeks. 

On her quick retreat out of the tent she heard Ron.

“Barking mad,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are my love language!

**Author's Note:**

> "Ely, don't you have two other WIPs?" Yes. "Ely, isn't the biggest exam of your career coming up, shouldn't you be studying?" Also yes. "Ely, don't you have a cross-state move to plan?" Again, yes.
> 
> However.
> 
> There are about 10 chapter pre-written, so I will be posting once a week on Saturdays. This is the only thing I'll be updating until Mid-October, which is when I get my life back.
> 
> I adore hearing from you in the comments. You can also always leave me an ask on [my tumblr](misselylux.tumblr.com)


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